What If
by Dspeedy
Summary: This story starts before season one. Marion is still alive and is working on getting Ty released on probation to her. In this story there will be no accident so Marion is alive and I will explore what might have happened had she been in her family and Ty's life. So the Title "WHAT IF".
1. Chapter 1

What if Chapter 1

Marion rolled over and put her feet on the cold wood floor of her Heartland bedroom. There was a lot on her mind as today was the day she had to decide if she was going to bring home this young man Tyler Borden for the correctional facilities he now called home. It had been a long process and it felt like this was what she was supposed to do but was she doing it for the right reason.

She had been up most of the night tossing and turning and wondering if she was doing the right thing. She got dressed and left a note on the table saying she would be back later in the day and went out to do the morning chores checking on the horses before she drove to Calgary to meet with Clint.

The last time she had someone living in the loft where Ty would be was when she and Tim had decided together to help out a young Indian boy. Scott had done well and went on to become a vet and was now a very good friend of the family.

A lot had changed since then. There had been Tim's accident leading to his addiction to pain killers and booze. Those had caused him to get angry and mean and for the protection of the girls she had gotten a divorce, that and the fact that Jack had thrown him off the place and threatened to shoot him if he ever set foot on it again.

Now she was about to bring a troubled young man to the ranch that had only her 15 year old daughter Amy , her father Jack and her to look after him. Amy was gone most of the time with friends and school Jack was busy trying to get the work done that had to be done around a ranch and she was busy as usual with helping horses. She knew this was probably not the best time as they were not in a good place financially but still she felt this was something she had to do.

This was going to be a surprise and she was not sure how the other two would take having someone new on the place. Jack could sure use the help and companionship and Amy well she would just have to hope that she stayed away from him for the most part. She had a boyfriend even if it was Jessie and spent much of her time with him or her girlfriends. So keeping him away from her should not present too much of a problem.

…

"You are sure this is who you want! I mean there are a lot of young people who could use your track record with disadvantage kids to help them out. This young man is a trouble maker and has been in more fights since he has been here than anyone I have ever had to deal with. He is one fight away from me turning him over to the prison system so they can lock him up to serve out the rest of his time. I have had to have him isolated from the rest of the kids on several occasions and that is where he is now, and you want to allow him to come to your place to live with you?"

"In short yes, he will not be living with me but on our ranch and I have people around who can help me with him."

"You mean your father and your 15 year old daughter? You really want someone like this around your daughter! I would not allow this kid to be on the same block as my daughter and you want him to live with her!"

"He will not be living with my daughter or even under the same roof. He will have a place of his own away from the house and I can guarantee if he gets out of line with her or me you will not have to worry about having to come get him to bring him back because he will be just down the street in the hospital, my father will see to that. But I can tell you that will never happen."

I have read all about him in your reports and I have been here 5 times now to observe him and I like what I see. Yes he has a temper and yes he is hard headed speaks out of turn and has problems with authority but down deep I think he is a good kid. "

"Lady I think you are a poor judge of character but since you are here and I have run all the paper work through the system and it has been approved and if I cannot talk you out of it let's go meet him."

As the probation officer walked Marion Fleming down the hall towards the area where Ty Borden was being kept in isolation he looked at her and said I am giving you one more chance before I open this door to take someone else!

"No this is who I want, said Marion with a smile."

Clint opened the door and they walked into the room and saw Ty sitting on the bed with his back to them. Without turning around he said, "What the hell do you want it's not time to feed the animals yet and I have been locked in this stinking room for a week now so I haven't caused any problems. So just go away and let me get back to counting the roaches."

Marion saw the look on the probation officers face and before he could speak she did. "Hello Ty my name is Marion Fleming."

Without turning around Ty said "I have seen enough shrinks and if you think just because you are a woman I might listen to you, sorry not going to happen. The only thing wrong with me is that people are always telling me what to do and I am tired of it. Then because the man my mom has decided to shack up with hits me and her and I kick his ass I am in here and he is out partying. "

"I am not a shrink, I live on a ranch near a town called Hudson a few miles south of here and I have talked to Clint and convinced him to let you come and live there with us till you are 18 and maybe longer I hope."

"Oh so they cannot handle me so you expect me to come to some halfway house ranch so you can have some cheap labor huh! Well I don't think I will take you up on your kind offer, you can take your ranch and shove it where the sun doesn't shine lady."

The probation officer looked at Marion and said "I am sorry I told you this was a bad idea. Let's go and find you someone who deserves to have a second chance."

"If you don't mind I would like to stay awhile longer alone if you don't mind."

"I cannot leave you alone with him, it breaks all the rules and if you were to get hurt I would be in all kinds of trouble."

"Would you be in any more trouble than this young man? I need to talk with him alone if you don't mind you can be right outside the door or better yet, Ty would you like to go outside and take a walk with me" asked Marion."

"I am not going to put him out with the other kids"

"I think the other kids are in class I am right" said Marion. She had remembered walking by the classrooms on their way to Ty's room and they were full of the children.

"Yes they are but …."

"Humor me Clint, I just want to talk with him outside of this confinement, if I am wrong I will take you up on your offer and choose someone else."

"Okay, you are a hard headed woman and I see that I am not about to change your mind."

Ty had sat listening to the woman and Clint as they had talked and now for the first time he looked over his shoulder to see make eye contact. He had done everything to drive this woman away and yet she had fought for him and now he wanted to know more about her. She was a handsome woman not what he had expected she wore jeans, a western shirt and a leather jacket, no sign of a purse and as he stared at her she did not even blink she just looked right through him with her gaze.

"Ty come with us please" said Marion.

Ty found himself standing up and walking to the door though he really did not know why. He found this woman to be different than anyone he had ever known. On the outside she appeared hard as nails and looked every bit what he thought a ranch wife might look like, yet there was something that he could not quite put his finger on. There was a calming tenderness that came through that gaze. She had not known it but he had been watching her every reaction to his rant and not once did she even flinch at the hurtful words he spoke. Nor had she raised her voice yet she had no problem getting Clint to bend to her desires.

That kind of strength in a woman was not what Ty had grown up around. His mom had never been strong and the men she chose in her life had brought him to where he was now. Running the streets had introduced him to another type of woman they were strong but they had also learned to take what they could get from whom ever you could get it from. He had lost all of his innocence to them but at least at that moment he had felt he was cared about. But this woman was different, and he felt drawn to find out what it was that made her that way.

As they walked out into the exercise area Marion began to speak. "Where do you see yourself in 10 years" she asked and then waited for an answer.

Ty had never thought about the future unless maybe it was about tomorrow. In his life one day at a time was about all he could handle or afford. When you are wondering where you are going to sleep or if you are going to have a meal that day, you never really had you time to think what 10 years from now might hold. Actually as he thought about it, it was scary.

"I have never given much thought to that" he found himself saying. "But now that I do I am not sure I want to know. My life has not really given me a whole lot to look forward too, so I guess I pretty much just worry about today. "

"Okay let's talk about today then. You are locked in a room with little chance to get out because you constantly get into fights. Clint has told me that you are a fight away from going from here to being locked up behind bars. Is that what you want Ty? Don't you want more in your life than that?"

"I came here today to offer you the chance to spend the next year out of this place and give you the freedom to make plans for your life that don't include coming back to the life you have known. I will not force you, but I want you to know I would like you to take me up on my offer."

"We live on 600 acres of land and I work with horses. I have a 15 year old daughter and my father who live with me. Your room on the ranch will be in the barn in a loft above the horses. It is hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It has no plumbing and you will have to come to the house to eat and take a shower. To tell you the truth you have a whole lot better accommodations here than you will at Heartland. Yes, that is the name of our ranch it has been in my family for 6 generations. The only thing I can promise you is you will be well fed and will have to work hard and you will be with people who care about you. "

As they walked Ty listened and thought how refreshing it was to hear someone talk to him like he had a choice in how his life turned out. She was asking him to come live on a ranch something he had no idea about, yet she was willing to let him learn. She had not tried to sugar coat it as had been the case with most of the people he knew in his life, she had told him about his less than stellar sleeping arrangements and everything she could that might make him not want to go with her yet that honesty had actually made him more likely too.

They continued to talk until they heard the bell ring letting them know that the rest of the kids would soon be on the yard with them. "So what is it do you go back to your room or do you come with me?"

Ty watched as the kids came out to the yard and realized there had to be more to life than living here for the next year and if what Marion had said was true then he knew that he could no longer be here because he did not want to end up in prison and the way his life was going even if he was able to stay out of trouble for the next year as he looked at his future that was where he was most likely to end up.

"I think I will take you up on that offer!"

"Good" she said putting her hand on his shoulder and with a nod started walking toward Clint.

They sat in Clint's office when Marion and Ty had finished signing all the paper work they shook hands and wished her good luck. As Marion and Ty stood up to leave Clint took Ty aside and told Marion he would be right out. Marion walked out of the room and Cliff turned and looked at Ty.

"Young man you don't know how lucky you are today. I tried for the better part of the morning to get her to walk away from you and take someone else. Yet she stood her ground for you and I am telling you know you give me just the slightest reason and I will remove you from her care faster than you can blink you understand me?"

Ty was about to make one of his sarcastic comments but looking at Clint he realized that he was not bluffing and was looking even now for a reason to put him back in that locked room.

"Yes, sir I understand" he said and for maybe the first time in his life he really did. He wanted to have this opportunity more than anything and was willing to give it his best shot.

Ty hurried out of the office, picked up his bag that was sitting in the hall, and caught up with Marion. When they reached the parking lot Marion pointed to an old pick-up truck and told Ty to put his bags in the back and get in.

"Can I bring my vehicles to the ranch" he asked as he slid into the seat and closed the door.

"Clint never said anything about vehicles where are they?" Marion wanted to know.

"They are at a friend's house a few blocks from here"

"I don't see why not tell me the way" she said.

Marion did not like the looks of the part of town she was driving into, there were abandoned cars, most with homeless people living in them, drunks passed out on the streets and it was just after noon and these girls on the streets she could only think what they were up to. As she watched them all as she passed them she wished she could make a difference in their lives as well, but she would have to try and make a difference in Ty so she continued till Ty told her to stop.

There in front of a rundown old building with windows broken out was a 1958 blue GMC Truck.

"There that's it" said Ty as Marion pulled over.

"You said vehicles I only see the truck."

"The bike is in the house" I think said Ty.

"In the house?"

"Yeah, I couldn't leave it in the truck or someone would have stolen it. Give me a minute and I will get it loaded up."

"You sure anyone still lives here? I mean look at the place."

"I am sure; they have actually fixed the place up since I was here last. And they said they put my stuff in my room and it was ready for me when I got out. "

Marion got out of the truck and went to the house to see if she could help. He walked up to the door and pushed it open as it was not fully closed. "Anyone home" Ty yelled into the house as he continued walking in, soon they heard a very sleepy voice say "who is it."

"It's Ty I have come to get my stuff."

What looked like an older lady though after what she had just seen on the streets around her could have been in her late twenties or thirties stuck her head out from behind the door of what Marion guessed was her bedroom and said "glad you're out, so you are not staying?"

"Well I am not exactly out; I am on probation and have to go live somewhere else for a while."

"Oh, ok well your stuff is in the last room on the right and good luck", she said as she closed her door.

Marion looked around the house and now saw why Ty had not even questioned his soon to be new living quarters. This place made the loft look like a 5 star hotel. They opened the door to what was to be Ty's room and she saw the bike and a very stained mattress on the floor with a couple of bags next to it.

"Am I going to need to bring my mattress" Ty asked

Just looking at it almost made her sick and she quickly told him "no you don't need it, so do you need those two bags then?"

"Yep you are looking at my all of worldly belongings right there. I will get the bike if you can pick up my bags." Marion walked over to pick up the bags and wished she had worn her work gloves to pick up the bags.

Ty had finished loading his truck and pulled his keys out from the springs on the fold down seat back and put them in the ignition and found the battery was dead. "I have some jumper cables" said Marion as she went back to her truck.

Soon the old blue pickup was started and Ty started cussing.

"What is wrong" said Marion as she ran to cab of the truck thinking he had hurt himself.

"Sorry" he said "Looks like I won't be taking the truck after all someone has taken all the gas. And it was full when I was locked up a year ago."

"Come with me" said Marion as she walked back to her pick-up. In the bed was a five gallon can of gas, "use that, it should get you to the ranch. And here take this it is a map and here is my phone in case you get lost just call the number called home. I have to get back I have to pick up some stuff from the vet and food for supper and there are chores that need to be done. You get there as soon as possible."

Ty looked at Marion and found herself saying "What if I just drive the other direction and you never see me again?"

"Then I have made a big mistake about who you are" she said closing the door to her truck and drove off. Before she lost sight of Ty in the rearview mirror she started to wonder if maybe she had done just that misread this young man.

To be continued


	2. Chapter 2

What If: Chapter 2

Ty stood watching Marion as she turned the corner and disappeared from his sight. He had never known anyone like her in is life she had just given him gas and a phone then drove away expecting that he would follow the map to her home. No one had ever shown that type of trust in him and he was not sure what to do about it. He wanted more than anything to get in his truck and drive to Vancouver and get lost in the city.

He had just finished putting the gas in his truck when a car with two girls pulled up. "We heard you were out and just wanted to see if it was true."

"How did you hear about me being out? I mean I only left the facility less than an hour ago."

"You know how news travels on the street someone saw you riding in a truck with a lady and it just got passed on. Then Jim saw you walking into your house and sent us a text so here we are. How would you like to go celebrate your release? Sue and I have a little something for you" she said with a smile as they both lifted their shirts and flashed him.

Ty looked at the girls and gave them a big smile and said "I am right behind you."

As the girls drove away Ty got in his truck and started to follow them. He had a good idea where they were headed and what awaited him at the other end of this short drive and he was ready to have a little fun. It was owed to him after all he had been in custody for almost a year now and all because he had tried to stand up to his step dad for beating his mom.

Ty followed them to the house and as they jumped out and ran back to help him get out of the truck showering him with kisses and whispering what they had planned for him.

Ty's mind was going a thousand miles per hour. Here he was and as Sue walked up to the truck with the beer he was ready to head into the house and partake of all the pleasures being offered. This trip to what was it she had called it Heartland would just have to wait or maybe it would never happen. But right now it did not matter there were more important things to take care of.

They walked into the house and Ty looked around and could see that the girls did not live here alone and from the looks of things the other occupants were not other girls.

"Who does that stuff belong too" Ty asked.

In a light hearted reply Mary said "those belong to the guys we live with but if you want we can throw them outside and they can get them when and if they show up later", she said gathering up the things tossed around the room. "We would rather be with you anyway. "

Just then the phone in his pocket rang he looked to see who was calling but he was afraid to answer it so he let it go to voice mail . He saw it was from someone called Amy. Then the phone notified him that someone had sent a text. It was Amy again and is said "Mom, I just wanted you to know Scott came by and dropped off the vaccine so you don't have to stop on the way home. Grandpa did ask if you would stop at Maggie's and pick up something for supper. He said he felt you might have a surprise for us when you got home."

"Who is Amy and why is she calling you mom" asked Sue who had been reading the text over Ty's shoulder. "Oh you have only been out less than and hour and you already stole that ladies phone!" Said Sue with a giggle, "Just like old times huh Ty."

Why had she left this stupid phone with him, and why should it make a difference? He had two very pretty girls ready to make his day, but now he felt that having someone trust him for the first time in his life meant more than anything that Mary and her sister had planned for him! He had realized just how shallow their affection was by the way they had been ready to get rid of the boys who they were living with and not even blink an eye in doing so. Sue had also reminded him of his old life or stealing and lying and he did not want that to be what defined him.

Ty looked at the girls and it became increasingly more apparent that he wanted more from life than this. So without saying a word he turned on his heel and walked out. And as he got in his truck and drove away he wondered what was going through the girl's minds. He had left without stopping to explain why he couldn't stay. But then he was not sure if he could have explained why as he was not sure himself.

….

Marion continued her drive home and kept looking in the rear view mirror hoping to see that blue pickup show up in her view. She knew she had taken a chance giving him her phone and then driving off leaving it up to him to follow her instructions and come to the ranch or do what he had asked her how she knew he wouldn't do. Go the other direction.

Forty minutes later she pulled into the vet clinic parking lot and went inside.

"Hi Marion said Scott, long time no see what can I do for you?"

"I am here to pick up the vaccine that Jack ordered."

"Oh, I guess they forgot to call you, I had to drive out that way earlier today so I dropped it off."

She remembered she did not have her phone so she said thanks and then looked at Scott. "I have something I need to ask you. "

"Sure what is it?"

"I want to know what the hardest part of coming to live with us was for you?"

"Wow, I have not thought about that for years. I guess I would say that first couple of weeks when I had to get used to being told what to do and then having you walk away expecting me to do it. I had never had someone in my life who had given me that much responsibility."

This brought a smile to Marion's face as she remembered those first few days. "I am happy to hear that was the hardest part of your move."

"Oh I am not finished yet," chuckled Scott. "While that was a difficult change it was a good one. But then there was Tim, it seemed that everything I did was wrong and I wanted to…. Well let's just say that you almost lost him before you lost him if you know what I mean. I know now that it was all the pills and booze that made him so mean and angry all the time. But at the time I wanted nothing more than to run away and I did on more than one occasion only to come back before dawn because of you and of course Lou.

Then that is where more problems came in as I was told in no uncertain terms by Jack, what would happen if I got within 10 feet of her. But if you had not stepped into my life I would not be where I am today. So from the bottom of my heart thank you Marion you are more of a mother and family to me than my own mom and family. "

"So why did you bring this up now?" Scott watched as Marion twisted up her face and glanced to the side and down, something he had learned from growing up around her meant she had done something that she was not sure of.

"I kinda went out and got another **_YOU_** and I have not told anyone yet!"

"What do you mean and you got another me?"

"I went to the juvenile center in Calgary and I have a young man coming to live with us like you did!"

"Oh, I see and you say Jack and Amy don't know about this yet? So when are you going to go get him and bring him to Heartland/"

"Ahmmm well he is kinda on the way, I hope!"

"On the way you hope? What do you mean by that Marion either he is or he is not on the way after all he is on probation and you are responsible for him right?"

"Yes, but I gave him my phone and some gas and he has his own vehicle, and I left before he did so I am hoping he is coming."

Scott looked at Marion and could tell she was really was not sure if he was coming or not and reached out and gave her a hug. "If I have learned anything in my time with you it is that you are a very good judge of character and if you felt like he would come then he will."

"Thanks Scott I really needed that. I guess I had better get home then before he shows up and Jack tries to run him off."

…..

The drive to Heartland was taking longer than he had expected and it had not helped that he had a flat tire and he found that someone had taken his Jack. He had had to wait till a car stopped and loaned him the jack. That was strange for him as well as in the city no one would have stopped and if he had left the car when he came back all his tires would be gone if not the whole vehicle.

He saw the sign that said Hudson was 5 miles away and then thought of the message that Amy had sent about bringing dinner from Maggie's. He had no idea how big Hudson was or if he could even find Maggie's but if he could, he thought maybe he could stop in and see if anyone from Heartland had been by that evening and if not he would pick up something. He did not know why he would even think of this but again this woman had him doing things that surprised even him.

As he drove through Hudson right there on the main street was Maggie's. He pulled in and walked into the small town diner and marveled at the difference in the people he saw here. No one looked like the people he was used to seeing. There were way too many cowboy hats on both men and women and everyone stopped and looked at him when he walked in and it made him feel uncomfortable. Then when he walked up to the counter this perky girl with dark curly hair came over to him and with a smile that seemed have no end and said.

"Hey stranger, what can I do for you?"

How did she know he was a stranger unless she was just talking about the fact that he had never been in here before. But he had this feeling she was talking about him being a stranger in the town and from the looks he was getting from everyone else in the place he knew that was a fact. "I would like to know if anyone from Heartland has come by to pick up something." He asked trying to make them see that he belonged.

Soraya looked at this young man and knew that he had never been around Heartland before as her best friend was Amy the owner's granddaughter. "And just what would it be that they might have come by to pick up she asked?"

Ty could tell by the change in her tone and demeanor that she must have known Marion which by everything he had seen so far should have not been such a big surprise. "I work there and Amy asked Marion to come and pick up something for dinner,"

"How long have you worked there and why would Mrs. Fleming send you instead of coming herself.?" Soraya questioned.

"Well actually have not started yet" said Ty sensing that the truth would probably be his best course of action with this girl. "I was on my way there now."

"Then how do you know that they wanted someone to pick up some dinner for them did Marion call you?"

Again Ty found himself wanting to say one thing but knowing that the truth, though it might sound less truthful than the lie he wanted to tell, was the only way he was going to leave here without her calling the police.

"Marion gave me these directions," pulling the sheet of paper Marion had given him out of his pocket, "and left me her phone in case I got lost. Amy called her and left a text about getting dinner so I figured since I had the phone I would check and see if anyone had picked it up."

Ty could tell by the look on Soraya's face that she did not believe a word he said.

"I am Amy's best friend and she has not told me anything about someone coming to work for them. I can see by the note that is Marion's hand writing but…

Ty pulled the phone out of his pocket and handed it to Soraya "here see for yourself." He was beginning to get worried as several of the men were paying even closer attention to his conversation with Soraya.

Soraya looked at the phone and knew that is was indeed Marion's and she read the text message and it said just what this boy standing in front of her had said it did. She knew how Marion was and this guy looked like a loser and someone down on his luck. This was just the kind of person she would want to find a home for like any stray animal she might come across.

"What is your name and what do you want" she asked handing the phone back to Ty.

Ty watched her closely and took the phone back and put it in his pocket. "My name is Ty Borden, and what do mean what do I want?"

"Yep Ty Borden, you are as dumb as you look, I want to know what you want to take to Heartland for Dinner?"

Ty looked at Soraya and finally said, "I am sure you know them better than I so would you please give me what you think they would order."

"And what about you" she asked?

Ty was frustrated and wondering why he had even come here. This was not like him to do something like this and now he felt like he was the enemy for just trying to do something nice. "What do you mean?"

"Never mind" said Soraya as she turned and walked to the kitchen window and put in the order. "Have a seat it will be ready in about 10 minutes. Would you like something to drink while you wait? I am sorry if you feel like you are getting the third degree from me but as I said Amy is my friend and nothing goes on at Heartland I don't know about. You have given me enough proof to believe you but I still am going to call Amy.

"Hello Soraya, why are you calling I thought you were working?"

"Hi Amy, I am but I have a question for you. Has your mom or Jack said anything about hiring a new hand for the ranch?"

"Are you crazy we can hardly afford to feed the horses that Mom keeps bringing home. I heard her and grandpa talking about that the other day and they talked about how we were going to have to cut back on some things just to make ends meet, so no there is no way we are hiring anyone!"

"Thanks, that is what I thought but I have a guy sitting at the counter who just ordered your dinner and says that he works for your mom. He even has a note on how to get to Heartland and your mom's phone!"

….

Marion pulled up in front of the house and Amy and Grandpa were standing on the front porch. She could tell by the look on Grandpa and Amy's faces that they were not happy. As she got out of the truck Jack walked up to his daughter and asked?

"Who the hell is Ty Borden!"

To be continued


	3. Chapter 3

Someone asked how long will this go, will it cover 9 years of Heartland? Not sure how far it will go but no it will not go that far. This will not really follow much of the show at all as it is a "What If" Marion had been alive. So there are a lot of the parts of HL that will not be used or not in the way they are now, Lou, Tim and of course any of the later characters. The story is about how Ty would have been affected by Marion's presents in his life not even that much about TAMY as they have a long way to go before that comes to be if at all in this story.

What If Chapter 3

Marion had been happy that Ty hadn't beaten her to the ranch but now she was wondering how Jack had found out about the new charge.

"He is from Calgary." she said, hoping but knowing that wouldn't end the questions. She had hoped to get Jack aside tell him without Amy being there, as she didn't want to scare her teenage daughter with Ty's past. Trying to get Amy to leave now would be impossible.

"I got him assigned to us from the juvenile center."

"You did what?!" Exclaimed Jack.

"I know you've needed more help lately. What with Amy in school and my client work, we haven't been able to lend a hand. I know that we couldn't afford to hire someone, so I had Ty placed by his probation officer with us. He just has one more year before he can be released. Since we are feeding and housing him the probation officer had agreed we don't have to pay him. You remember like we did with Scott."

"First of all, you're damn right we are not going to pay him. Second, as soon as he sets foot on this place I'm sending him home. You have enough things to take care of with the horses and her" said Jack nodding at Amy.

Amy started to protest but before she could Marion spoke again, "Dad, he is staying. He needs us as much as we need him and I will _not_ allow you to put him back in detention, to see him end up in prison."

"And why may I ask, would he end up in Prison? What did he do to end up there in the first place? He must be some kind of work because you don't just go from detention to facing time in prison!"

"Amy you need to go in the house and start something for supper, I will join you in a minute." Marion tried to usher Amy away from the impending explanation.

"I won't need to; our criminal is bringing us supper from Maggie's." Amy replied.

Marion turned and looked at Amy. "What do you mean he is bringing us supper?"

"Soraya called and told me he was in there. She was about to call the police on him when he pulled out your phone and a hand written note from you." Amy explained.

"Why would he go to Maggie's?" Marion was becoming more and more confused and it did not appear that the day was going to get any better as she watched the smug look on Amy's face.

"Then you go set the table, NOW" Marion snapped, feeling a little stressed and instantly guilty for speaking to Amy that way,

When Amy had reluctantly turned and gone in the house to set the table Marion turned back to Jack to answer his question. "He just about beat his step father to death."

"He what? There is no way we are having someone like that around here. Do you understand me?" Jack said sternly, his face set with certainty.

"Let me finish Dad. His step-father was beating him and his mom. When his step-dad got drunk one night he came home and started beating his mom again. Ty had taken all he could stand and jumped him. It took the cops pulling him off or he would have killed him they think." Marion explained her voice soft and filled with empathy for Ty.

"If that was the case, then he wouldn't have been in juvenile because he was only protecting his mom." Jack replied, unconvinced.

"True but his mom sided with her husband, saying that Ty had attacked them."

"Let's say that what you are telling me is the truth. That still does not explain your remark about him ending up in prison if he goes back to the detention center though." Jack was adamant there was more to the story than Marion was sharing.

Marion knew what she had to say was something Jack would not understand, she considered lying to him but her dad would see right through that, he always had. "He sometimes gets into fights; and he put a couple of the guys into the hospital for a few days. He never hurt them bad though."

"Oh, so sending someone to the hospital is not a bad beating? Have you lost your mind Marion? Can you stand there after all you have told me and say that you want to bring this type of boy into your home and around your daughter?" Jack questioned.

Marion was getting angry, "I suspect you are most worried about yourself old man, afraid you'll be the next one he puts in a hospital!" She was sorry before the last words had exited her mouth but she couldn't stop herself.

In the way her father had always faced problems, he just shook his head and said. "No, I am not worried about me because if he lifts one hand at me, they will have a hard time finding the pieces of him scattered over this ranch."

To the untrained ear, it would have seemed like Jack had had the last say and there would be no Ty Borden on his property. But to Marion who had lived with her dad her whole life, she had heard what she needed to hear, when he said "if he lifts". Marion threw her arms around her Dad and said "thanks dad you will not regret this".

"I better not."

…

Ty sat on the stool at counter, watching everyone watch him. Had they never seen a stranger in this town? He was feeling more and more uncomfortable, with every minute he sat there. He decided he would go take a walk outside, so he could at least dodge all the people staring at him. As he was just about to get up from the counter, Soraya saw him and asked, "Where do you think you are going? Planning to skip out on me were you"?

"I am not sure, I feel like a new guppy in a fish bowl, in a house full of little kids. Has anyone around here ever seen a stranger before?"

"I am sure they have but not many that dress like you." Soraya teased.

"What's wrong with the way I'm dressed" said Ty looking down at his clothes, feeling mildly offended.

"Oh, there is nothing wrong with them if you lived in the projects in a big city, no offense. You know, to theme you look like rode a motorcycle riding drug dealing kind of guy. Here in Hudson you stick out like a sore thumb." said a smiling Soraya.

Ty again looked at his clothes and couldn't understand what Soraya was talking about. "I don't look like that, do I?" Ty started to realize how much he really was different to the other diners. His old leather jacket was not like any that men in the diner were wearing. His favorite faded old tee shirt was very different to the various shirts worn around him. He had noticed everyone seemed to have a belt with a buckle - a big buckle. The girls mostly wore jeans and boots, their shirts were not what he was used to either, as they seemed to either be button up long sleeves or have fancy snaps where the buttons should have been. The only thing that he seemed to have in common with most of the patrons here was that he drove a truck.

"Ok, I guess I see your point" said Ty defeated. "How soon is the food going to be ready? I feel the need to leave this place."

"And what makes you think that Jack and Amy are going to make you feel any less uncomfortable?" Soraya wanted to know.

He remembered Marion mentioning those two and now he knew that Amy was Soraya's friend, so he had an idea that the comment from her probably made sense. Jack, well that was a whole new ball of wax, as he had no idea of who he was.

Soraya finished packing up the meal and took it over to where Ty was sitting at the counter. "That will be $35.00" as Ty reached for the bag.

"$35.00 I thought they would have a tab or something."

"Oh they do, but you don't"

Ty fished in his pockets, pulling out $40.00 and handed it to Soraya. He wasn't sure why he was shelling out his money to buy food for people he did not even know.

He looked at Soraya and said, "I could be lying in bed a woman under each arm and them feeding me and giving me drinks and I am standing here giving you the last of my money and not even knowing why."

"Here's your change" Soraya said handing Ty the $5.00

 _Hell, I've done everything else completely out of character_ today, he thought to himself. "Keep it!" He said to Soraya.

"Thanks, it was nice to get to know you, too bad I won't be seeing you again."

"What do you mean? I am going to be living out at this Heartland place, so I am sure I will see you again."

"Doubt it, if what Amy said was true. Jack will probably just take the food and tell you to get off his place."

"Who is Jack again" Ty asked.

"He is the owner of Heartland a crusty ole cowboy who only understands two things, hard work and manners especially towards women. Cross him on either and I promise you it will be the last thing you ever do at Heartland.

How had he gotten himself into this? He should have stayed in solitary at the detention center or maybe his first thought of just leaving the area when he had the chance. Not many folks would come looking for an escaped delinquent. But he had made a promise to a woman who had trusted him like no one ever had. He could leave later if he chose but tonight he was going to stay true to his word. He took the food, putting it in the seat of his old blue pickup and drove out of Hudson headed to Heartland.

….

Jack turned on his heel, saying that he was headed to the barn to feed the horses and would be back in a few minutes. "When I get finished he had better be here and he better answer all the questions right or I'm going to remove him from this place before the bottoms of his feet hit the ground."

Marion walked into the house to find Amy in the kitchen, trying to start what she had been sent into the house to do minutes before. But the curiosity of a teenage girl was strong, she had stood at the front door trying to hear the conversation of her mom and grandpa. Amy reached for the dishes in a hurry to disguise that fact that she hadn't obeyed, causing her to drop a dish on the floor - shattering it to pieces. As was the custom in the house, she had taken her boots off at the front door and was now standing in the middle of pile of shattered glass.

"Don't move" said a frightened Marion knowing all too well how even the smallest of pieces of the shattered plate could cause her daughter harm. She helped Amy safely over the broken shards before asking her to get the vacuum while she swept up the largest pieces. After they had swept, vacuumed and mopped the floor they went back to the business at hand of setting the table.

"Mom, why do you want to have someone like this Ty character around our home? I heard what you told Grandpa and I agree with him, we don't need another mouth to feed and especially one who has a temper like that." Amy asked clearly worried.

Marion looked at her daughter and decided it was best to fill her in on their soon to be ranch hand. "Amy he comes from a broken home, one where his dad left when he was very young."

"I know all about that and I don't go around beating people up."

Marion continued. "There is a big difference, when his father left, his mom remarried. This man was a drunk, a real scoundrel from what I have learned. He has been in and out of jail for various reasons. Anyway, one night he came home drunk and started beating on Ty's mom and he stepped in to stop him. They got into a fight and Ty beat him really bad."

"I heard that part but what mother would lie about her son? I find that hard to believe, just like grandpa." Amy was struggling to understand where her mother was coming from.

"All I know is, I have observed him many times at the detention center. I was even there one time when a fight started. He didn't start the fight - he stepped in. A bigger bully was picking on a smaller child and though he went overboard, his heart was in the right place. I really think there is a good boy underneath that tough guy exterior."

She looked up, to see the blue pickup pull up in front of Heartland.

To be continued.


	4. Chapter 4

What If: Part 4

Ty had found following directions and driving on the country roads to not be as hard as he had imagined it might be. Mostly because there was no way to get lost as there were not turn offs that did not have a gate or a mail box with the name of the family who lived at the other end of the long dirt drives. At last he saw the gate with the big Heartland sign on it. As he turned down the road he thought this is the last chance I can just keep going and be out of here before they know I am gone. But he felt the pull of honoring his commitment to this lady and turned left and headed down the long dusty drive.

* * *

As he pulled up in front of the house he saw Marion's truck and then saw her coming out of the house. To his left he saw the man that he knew must be Jack coming from the barn and right behind Marion was this perky blonde that Ty guessed was Amy. He stepped out of the truck and reached across the seat to retrieve the food he had brought from Maggie's.

"Good to see that you found us", said a very relieved Marion. She had begun to worry that she had made a mistake and Ty not being here when she showed up had been both a blessing and a curse at the same time. It had allowed her time to tell the family about Ty before he showed and it had also made her have to defend what she had done.

"It was not really that hard you give good directions" said Ty with a smile. "Here is the food from Maggie's"

"Thank you Ty, what made you think of stopping at Maggie's?

"You got a text from Amy, I guess that is you" he said nodding to the blonde girl looking around from behind her mom. "It told me that she had ordered dinner and asked if you would pick it up, so since I had your phone I decided to stop by and pick it up." He did not go into the way he had felt as he had waited for their supper, or how he had had a run in of sorts with the young waitress Soraya.

"So you think it is ok to read messages sent to other people, do you?" said Amy

Ty felt he needed to defend himself and at the same time did not see how anything he might say to this girl would change how she felt but he went ahead and said. "I was not sure if maybe it might have been your mom, so yes, I felt it was ok to check it."

"Well, you were wrong," said a defiant Amy stepping out from behind her mom.

"Amy, that is enough! Get in the house and finish setting the table" ** _,_** Marion scolded.

Amy started to argue but then realized it would do no good, so she turned and walked back into the house.

Marion looked at Ty and said "you did not have to do that, we usually do our own cooking" _here looking at a departing Amy a scowl on her face._

"You know I don't cook and it was getting late and we did not know where you were and Jack and I were hungry" said Amy as she walked into the house.

"Looks like I am going to have to remedy that situation. Starting tomorrow you are cooking all the meals till I know you have it figured out."

Jack had just walked up and as he looked at the young man standing in front of him and listened to his daughter and granddaughter, he just shook his head, as he walked into the house and mumbled something about eating before it got any colder.

Ty stood there and wondered what he had gotten himself into. It seemed that only Marion was really interested and hopefully somewhat happy, that he was even there. Amy seemed to be a spoiled little brat and he had only known her for a few minutes, and then there was Jack; the look he had given Ty as he walked up, made him think back to Soraya's words. Maybe he was not long for this place. Yet deep down he felt like this was a place he did not want to leave - not yet anyway.

They all turned and walked into the house, but Ty was not sure if he was allowed to just follow them in. As he stood there, Jack stuck his head back out the door and looked at Ty with a gaze he felt go straight through him. "Are you going to stand there all night? If so, can you at least bring the food to the door so we can eat!"

Ty walked up the steps across the porch and opened the screened door and walked in. He looked to his right and saw a country kitchen with the knotty pine cupboards and the table in the middle of the kitchen floor with the red and white checked table cloth. As he started walking towards the table, Amy spoke curtly at him.

"Take your shoes off! We don't wear shoes in this house."

"Amy that was not called for" said Marion. "He does not know our customs here and you should not treat a guest that way."

"He is not a guest, he's just convict labor!"

Ty saw the look of horror on Marion's face and thought for sure she was going slap the smirk off of Amy's face. But as quickly as she had showed her temper she slowly turned to Amy and said "you may go to your room and stay there. I will be back to talk with you in a minute. I am sorry, Ty, I don't know what got into her. "

"I told you this was a bad idea and now I wish I had followed through and kicked him off the place the moment he showed up. What were you thinking Marion?" said Jack. "And you, young lady, are not too big to be taken out behind the wood shed. Where did you get the idea you could talk to anyone that way?"

Marion could see Jack's temper was about to get the best of him and so she stepped in. "I will handle this, Dad."

"You better, I don't think she needs to go to her room, there is a lot of work to be done in the barn and we might as well get some good out of her. " As soon as he had said the words he was sorry, but at the moment there was too much going on in his mind to even think about telling her he was sorry. He could do that later when she had had time to think about what she had said and done. Marion springing this on them the way she had put him in a bad mood as he did not like change and having this young man around was definitely a change.

Ty looked down at the floor and did not know what to say. He was only happy that Marion and Jack had stepped in and said something to Amy, because he was about to have told her what he thought of her! It was not going to be easy to keep his cool around here but he did not want to end up back in detention. "Here, take the food and tell me where I am going to sleep and I will take my food and go and eat there. I can see that I am not welcome in this house."

…..

Amy was already putting on her boots and hat as she prepared to head to the barn, knowing that it was not wise to argue with her grandfather when he was in this frame of mind. She had only seen him like this one time before and what had happened next, though she had only been 5 years old, was still stuck in her mind, etched there for all time. Jack had literally thrown her father out of the house and told him never to show his face up there again. He had not known that she had seen that and though at the time she did not understand why he had done so, she also knew better than to question him about it.

Her mom never seemed to say much about her dad leaving and had buried herself in working with the horses. Her older sister Lou seemed to take it the hardest and as soon as she could, she had left for college and then had gotten a job in New York City. They had not heard from her in over a year. She sent her a birthday card and present at Christmas but only to her and never to her mom or Jack. Amy was not sure if she was angrier at Jack, Lou or her mom. All she knew is that her family was no longer happy but just lived day by day and at times she was not even sure that they were even doing a good job of that.

Marion had tried to get Amy to help her with her work with the rescued horses she took in and with problem horses that she helped people with. While Amy enjoyed being around the horses, she needed time to herself as well and she had recently started dating Jesse Stanton, the son of a friend of Grandpa's. Thoughshe was not sure how much of a friend Val Stanton was but her Grandpa tolerated her. But if they knew that she and Jesse were dating she would be in all kinds of trouble as her mom had told her that we would not date anyone till she was at least 16 and then only if she approved of him. Jesse was not a boy that she would approve of, Amy knew. But she did not care as it was her life and she would do as she pleased. She had worked out ways to be with him by saying she was with Soraya, which most of the time she was, as Soraya was dating Jesse's best friend. And if Soraya was working she would just tell them that she was with Ashley, Jesse's sister.

She had gone so far as to figure that even if she was caught, what could they do to her? They were always on the go and most of the time had no idea where she was. And besides, she had watched the relationship her sister and Scott had carried on right under their noses and if Lou could hide what was going on in the loft of the barn, she could hide what was going on miles away.

…

Ty handed the food to Marion, and she said:

"No, Ty, please take off your shoes and have a seat. We will eat, and then I will get you set up in the loft. I think that we all need to have a talk and it is probably better that Amy is not here."

"Yes, ma'am" he said, reaching down to take off his boots. This was all new to him; he had never been anywhere where they took off their shoes to come in the house.

Marion looked over at Ty and could tell by the look on his face he was trying to figure this custom out.

"We remove our shoes because we spend a lot of time in the barn, corrals and in places that generally leave stuff on your shoes that we don't want tracked all over the house. We will get you a pair of slippers so you can put them on in the winter, but in the summer we just wear our socks around the house."

Ty was grateful that Marion had thought it was important enough to explain why they did what they did. He was not really used to that - in fact the way Amy had spoken to him was more like what he was used to. When you were told to do something, you did not question the command nor did you expect explanations, so this was new to him.

They sat down at the table, handed out the food and began to eat.

"So what do you think you are getting yourself in for?" asked Jack between bites of his burger.

"What do you mean? I am not sure I understand your question" said Ty.

"What did my daughter tell you about what you would be doing while you are here at Heartland? Do you have any idea of what we do? Have you ever worked on a ranch before - have you even been on a ranch?"

Not sure where all this was headed, Ty looked at Jack and answered him.

"No, sir, I don't really know what you do here and no, I have never been anywhere like a ranch in my life. I expect that you will tell me what I need to do, though" he said a little sarcasm sneaking out in his voice.

"Yes I will, and the first thing I am going to tell you is if you ever use that tone of voice in this house again you will not like the results it brings, do I make myself clear?"

"Dad, you stop that!" Marion said ** _._**

"No, Marion, I will not. There are rules he needs to understand and I will not have some snot nosed kid thinking he can come to my ranch and treat any of us or any of our friends with anything but respect. That is my first rule and if he can't abide by that one simple rule, he can remove himself from my place now. Is that understood?" he said looking at Marion and then at Ty.

They both nodded as there was no room for negotiations in his voice.

"Secondly, I don't know you but I have heard you have a temper, and if I hear of that getting out of control, I will kick you off the place so fast you will not even realize you had been here. Thirdly, there are three people on this ranch besides you. My daughter, who will take full responsibility for you and you will obey everything she tells you to do without question; Amy, who is a teen with teen desires and has a lot of growing up to do, and thinks the whole adult population of the world is stupid and don't we know what is going on. If I think that you trying to help her in anyway with those teen desires and that growing process, it will be the last thing you ever do for anyone, is that clear?"

"Dad that is not called for! Amy is a good girl and is not going to do anything like that!" Marion was offended that her dad would say such a thing, and especially in front of Ty.

Jack was not through and he had been meaning to talk with Marion about what Val had shared with him today but now he figured - what the hell. "You do know your daughter has been lying to you about where she has been lately, and especially at nights on the weekends, right?"

Now Marion was getting angry and Ty was getting very uneasy in his chair, wishing he could just get up and walk out, but not being sure what would happen if he did, he stayed right where he was.

"No, apparently I don't, but I am sure you are going to tell me!" Said a very angry Marion, notknowing what her dad was going to say but she was ready to stand up and fight him to protect her daughter if that was what it took. At this point she had completely forgotten Ty even existed and this fight might have not been something she would want him to hear on his first day here.

"She has been spending lots of time with Jesse Stanton. They have been dating for about two months now and from what Val told me, you may need to have a very pointed talk with her as Val said she is not sure how far that relationship has gone but she has caught them in his room more than once."

"Were they…." Marion was almost too afraid to ask.

"No, they had their clothes on at least when Val caught them, but who knows how many times she did not catch them. "

Marion then looked over her shoulder and saw a very uncomfortable Ty. She was not sure who she was most angry with - Amy, Jesse, or her Dad - at the moment. This should have never been brought up in front of Ty for one thing. The other was the thought of Amy lying to her that rocked her to her soul. She had just lost her appetite and found herself getting up from the table and headed for the door. As she put on her boots, she was wondering what she was going to say to Amy and then she felt the very real feeling of failing as a parent. How could this have been happening and she had not known?

Marion walked into the barn and found Amy feeding the horses.

"Amy Fleming, you come over her ** _e_** right now!"

Amy knew her mom was angry with her because of what she had said but figured that since it had been a while, she would be over that, but now she was angrier than ever and it was not like her mom. She had a quick fuse temper but it was almost always kept in check and then was gone as soon as it flared, but Amy was sure that this time whatever it was was not going away any time soon. As she walked over to where Marion stood, Amy braced herself for what was to follow.

"Would you like to explain to me what you were doing in Jesse Stanton's bedroom with him?"

Amy had been ready for anything but this, it caught her completely off guard, and she had no answer and it showed as she tried to form one "Who told you that?" She was not asking because she felt that it was wrong, but rather who would dare tell her mom such a thing - even if it were true.

"It seems that Val either has a key or you two forgot to lock the door" said an equally upset Marion. "How could you do this to me, Amy? Don't you see how this makes me look in front of _your grandfather._

"Always worried about yourself - what about me? All I ever hear is how I need to do this and that or I will end up like my sister. Well, maybe if you had cared as much about her as mewhen you and dad broke up, she would still be around and not off living in another country!"

The words struck Marion like a ton of bricks. She thought she had pushed all of that pain out of her life, and felt she had done the best she could for her young daughters after Tim had left. She had been careful not to run him down in front of the girls even though the drinking and drugs had turned him into a mean and dangerous man. It had been her taking the brunt of one of his rages that had caused her dad to throw him off the ranch and forced her hand so she had felt to divorce him.

Lou had always been Daddy's girl and she could not understand why Marion had forced him to go. Lou had kept in touch with her dad and blamed her mother for tearing up the family. The fact that Marion had started working with Victor Whitetail, a friend of hers ** _,_** a little more closely after the divorce had madeLou feel that it had been another man that had caused Marion to push her dad away and proceed with the divorce.

The two had had their share of fights about it and Lou had never been able to see her mother's side of those arguments, most likely because Marion never told her about the beatings and abuse she had taken while Tim was abusing the booze and drugs. She had lost Lou and was still not ready to clear the air with her, partly because she did not want to damage her father in her eyes, and partly because she felt that Lou would not believe her if she did, and it was easier to just have her out of her life, thinking she had done something she had not, than thinking that Lou would leave because she did not believe the truth.

Amy had been too young, or so she had thought, to really form much of an opinion about all of that, but Marion saw now that she could not have been more wrong. She had failed to see that Amy was growing up and she deserved more of her attention, yet she had done just the opposite. She had buried herself in her work with the horses, dragging her daughter along, thinking that was what she needed because she really did seem to enjoy it.

The divorce had caused Marion to stop thinking of herself as a woman and she had had to reinvent herself which was when shehad let the horses become her life and her loves. What she had failed to do was to realize that her little girl was growing up into a woman and if she was not there for her, to help her through this time in her life, she was going to learn what she could from whomever she could.

To be continued


	5. Chapter 5

What If

As Marion walked out the door, Jack got up from the table and walked out to the living room and sat down in his chair. He picked up his glasses and began to read the paper. Ty was watching him intently from the kitchen, even though nothing had happened yet, he knew that somewhere inside that old man there was a volcano ready to erupt.

Ty now sat at the kitchen table alone trying to figure out what to make of all that had just happened. He thought at first he'd walked into a perfect family and that Marion had it all together. Then he saw the truth, that there was no such thing as a perfect family and no one had it all together. He had been wondering how, or if, he would fit in when he had sat down at the table that night. Now, he was wondering if maybe he was better off than they were at this moment. He had grown up in a dysfunctional family; he'd seen how lying and feuds could tear a family apart. Watching a family argue might have caused most people to want to walk away but he was determined to stay and see it through. As he finished his dinner he knew that he needed to give Marion time to return and show him where he was going to spend the night, without interrupting whatever she and Amy must be talking about.

When Marion walked back into the kitchen he could tell that it hadn't gone well. She looked at him sitting at the table and let out a gasp as she realized that they had all just left him sitting there.

"I am so sorry, Ty. You shouldn't have had to witness that. Bet you're wondering just what you have gotten yourself into", Marion apologized.

"Dad, how could you just leave Ty sitting at the table alone? That was so rude!" Marion shouted through to the living room.

All they heard in response was a grunt.

"It's okay; I know what it is like to be a part of a family that is struggling to get along at times. I have seen how bad it can get and what I saw tonight actually made me feel more at home, not less. I like the fact that everything is not perfect, it allows me to see that you don't have to be perfect to succeed. I hope that my being here and seeing this does not change the way you see me. I know it as only made me appreciate your family more", Ty admitted as he got up from the table, giving Marion a smile.

"Looks like he will fit in just fine, one more pain in the backside person I have to put up with", said a grumpy voiced Grandpa from the other room.

Ty held up his hand. "You said you were going to show me where I was supposed to sleep."

"Yes, I am sorry, let me get the blankets", Marion gathered up some spare bedding and asked Ty to follow her.

Ty stopped by his truck to pick up his two bags. Then he followed her to the barn and then up the stairs into the loft. The room was surprisingly quite big as it almost covered the same area as the barn below. There were a few places where they had things stored, but it was still larger than anything Ty had ever lived in before and it was all his.

"This looks great", said Ty as he took in the furniture around him.

"You might not think so when it rains, the wind blows, it gets too hot or too cold. As you may have noticed there is not a lot of protection from the outside world. You have to come to the house to shower and use the bathroom, but I hope you like it well enough to stay", explained Marion.

"It will be fine honestly, I can always open the loft doors if it gets too hot, move out from under the leaks if it rains, and I will ask for more covers if it gets too cold. I've been sharing a bathroom for most of my life and lately it was at the other end of the building. I will be fine, Marion. Thanks", Ty said, trying to make Marion feel better about the living arrangements.

"I wish other people we so easy to please", Marion said under her breath.

"May I say something?" asked Ty.

"Yes, please, feel free to talk about anything", said Marion warmly.

"Don't be too hard on Amy, she is a teen and just beginning to feel what it is like to be an adult, yet at the same time she is and will always be your little girl. If I may, take the time to talk with her about what is going on. Take the time to try and understand what she is going through right now. I can tell you from all of the troubled kids, to include me, I have been around the past year that is all most of them want and need. Someone who is willing to put them first and take the time to really listen to what they are saying. I am not saying you should agree with her about the stupid things she will do. But she needs to know you will be there for her no matter what and open to hear it, from her first, when she makes a mistake. She needs you to be truthful with her and she has to know you will have her back, even if it means she has to be punished", Ty said with honesty, hoping that Marion would understand what he was trying to convey and not feel he was judging her.

Marion stood there, staring at Ty for a moment before speaking. "And I thought that I was going to help you. It sounds like you have it more together than me. Thank you, Ty, I have never heard anyone put what you just said any better, and I will promise to try and do what you have so eloquently shared with me. I also promise that I will try and show you the same."

Marion left the loft, feeling more than ever that she had made the right choice in asking Ty to come live with them.

After Ty had finished making his bed and putting way the few clothes he had, he decided to check out the rest of his new living quarters. He opened the front loft doors and felt the now cool night air as he looked out across the Heartland corrals and home. He could see across the fields and to the far off mountains in the west, that were just beginning to get ready to hide the sun from the grasslands of the east. He had to admit that he could see pulling a chair up and watching the sun set from here was going to be one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. He walked to the other end of the barn, opened those doors. Out this side he had a view of the pastures and fields that were part of the 600 acres that made up Heartland that Marion had talked about. He looked at the pond behind the barn that was fed by a small stream that flowed across the Heartland ranch. It was so quiet here, the only sounds he heard were the sounds of nature as it began its evening serenade. Suddenly the quiet was broken as he heard a noise from below in the barn. He wentto check it out.

…..

Amy was still angry at her mom.

 _Who did she think she was, bringing this Ty character into their_ lives? _She had not even asked them about it, even more so to think that she had anything to say about how she lived her life._

Amy had quickly hidden when she saw her mom and Ty on their way towards the barn. They had gone up to the loft and not noticed her. Amy was beginning to feel jealous of her mom spending so much time with Ty already. He'd gotten more attention from her in the last few hours than Amy had in months. It had taken her finding out about Jesse for her to actually come out and talk. Not that Amy really wanted to talk about it.

When Amy saw that her mom had gone back towards the house, she climbed out of her hiding spot and picked up a grain bucket. She threw it across the barn in frustration, accidently hitting one of the stall doors and spooked the horse in the stall. She went into auto-pilot and tried to settle the horse down.

"What happened?" asked Ty as he came down the stairs.

"If it makes any difference to you, city boy, I threw a bucket and scared this horse. What are you going to do about it?" fumed Amy.

"Nothing, looks like you have got it under control. I'll just go back upstairs and finish setting up my room in that case", Ty replied, wishing he hadn't asked.

Amy had been ready for anything but his seeming lack of concern. She was positive he would go running to tell Marion what had. Once she got the horse settled down, Amy decided she needed to go have a talk with Ty. She did not trust anyone wouldn't jump at the opportunity to take her down a notch after what she had said about him at supper.

"Okay, what do you want?" Amy asked as she walked into his room.

"You know, even kids in detention understand that you knock before you come into someone's room", Ty said, wondering to himself what it was she wanted now.

"Are you comparing me to your friends who were in jail with you? A bunch of low class losers that have no respect for the law or anything else and are now where they belong behind bars?" Amy spat at Ty, full of spite. Hoping she had now given Ty more than he could handle, she waited for him to blow as she remembered her mom talking about how he had a temper. Then she could go tell her mom and get rid of him for good. She felt pretty smug with herself.

Ty looked right into Amy's eyes and in a calm, and very much controlled voice, said, "No. For starters, they are much better behaved than you and I wouldn't put them down like that by comparing them to you! I've seen more respect from them than I have witnessed from you. And if you are trying to get me angry so you can go crying to mommy, then I have news for you. It will take more than a little girl who sneaks around behind her Mother's back, lies to her and does who knows what in some boy's room, to get a reaction from me", he said, turning away. "And for the record, I don't care who you sleep with, just don't do it up here."

"I didn't sleep with anyone and even if I did, I would not do it in this filthy old loft", Amy could feel herself becoming more agitated the more Ty spoke. "I am happy to hear that, but I think the person you need to be telling that to is your mom", Ty said pointedly.

"As if she cares what the truth is! She had already made up her mind as to what I did. She doesn't care about me, but is only worried about her reputation", Amy said her voice full of hurt.

"Amy", said Ty softly, "I'm sure that your mom cares about you; sometimes it is hard for parents to understand why we do things. Sometimes they have problems of their own and miss out on the simple signs we are showing, that we need their love and attention. I would have loved to have had a mom who included me in her life as yours does. Or a dad that did not beat me every time he got drunk, which was every day."

"Well, my mom and grandpa ran my father off, so I wouldn't know about what he would have done. My sister believes mom did something that caused it to happen but would never tell me what that was. But it keeps her from ever coming home or contacting either of them", Amy said sadly.

"Have you ever asked her about what happened?" Ty prodded gently for more, now that Amy was opening up to him.

"No, but if she wanted me to know she would have told me, wouldn't she?" said a visibly upset Amy.

"You don't know that unless you have asked. I'm not saying that she will tell you, but unless you ask you can't make that call. I am far from a perfect child, I have done things that, yes, I should have been put in detention for, but that's not why I was there!" Ty admitted.

"Mom spent more time talking to you and about you today, than she ever has with me", said Amy.

Think you may be exaggerating a little? She used much of the time I spent with her talking about you. "Yes when she came up to my room, we talked about the holes in the roof, the hot and cold room depending on the weather and the distance I had to travel to use the bathroom", Ty said with a smile, trying to reassure Amy he wasn't replacing her. "Your mom told me a lot about you, and your love of horses, she told me how you had a gift with them. She let me know in no uncertain terms how I should treat you and what was expected of me if I decided to live here at Heartland. I was told by your friend Soraya that I would not last here long, that Jack would kick me off the place before I had time to hand over your meal tonight. I've been put down by you and your grandfather; both by the way you talked to me and the way I was treated. But I can tell you I would take anything you or your grandfather can dish out for one reason - your mom", Ty said with complete honesty.

What Ty had said now had Amy's attention.

"What did Mom do that was so great that would make you say that?" she asked curiously.

"That's easy… She believed in me", said Ty, smiling as he continued. "I know you may not understand this but I have never had anyone believe in me like she has. I'm still a relative stranger to her yet she trusted me with her phone and that I would arrive here unescorted. Yes, I was in detention and there are a lot places I could be right now instead of here, but I could not do anything other than keep to my word to your mom. You don't know what it's really like not being trusted. I started sneaking out when I was 9 years old because I did not want to be home when my dad came home. I stole food so I had something to eat and I fought on the streets or I would not be here today. When I was first picked up by the police and taken home I was beaten by my stepfather and locked in my room for days. I think my mom cared and would not have treated me that way, but she was either drunk or high or too afraid of my step-dad to do anything about it. When I was finally let out of my room they would not let me go anywhere without one of them. That lasted until I was 13 and I just left and they didn't even look for me. I lived on the streets for a while before I was taken in by some older boys who let me be part of their gang. After a couple of years I decided to go home again and was told the only way I could stay was if I paid my own way. I did anything I could to get the money as I wanted to be with my mom. About a year later, I'd seen my mom beaten for the last time and I snapped, almost beating my step-dad to death", Ty said taking a deep breath, he hadn't meant to give her his life story but he couldn't stop himself once he started.

"Well, that was not your fault, if what you are telling me is true. You were just protecting your mom", Amy replied sympathetically. She really had misunderstood his background, but she still did not trust him completely.

Sensing Amy's trust issue of him telling the truth Ty continued.  
"That is my side of the story. Of course my mom and step-father said I went crazy and started beating them while they sat watching TV. You can believe which ever story you want", said Ty as he continued, "I was convicted and sent to detention till I was 18. Things were not always good there either; I got into fights protecting younger children from bullies and was finally locked in my room because of it. I was one fight away from ending up in real jail and then your mom stepped in. She believed in me, even when my probation officer, tried to talk her out of it, right in front of me. So when you stand there and say your mom does not care, I have a hard time believing you", Ty said glancing at Amy.

Amy sat on the stairs, staring at Ty. She had no idea that anyone could live through what he had just told her, yet as she had watched him tell his story she could tell that he was not making it up. There were times it looked as if he were going to cry as he talked about his mom and she could see how he wished that she had loved him more than she had showed him. He felt betrayed by those who were supposed to love him the most. Why he had shared all this with her was beyond her comprehension at the moment. However it had made her stop and think about her own mom and made her realize that she was loved and cared for, even if not always in the way she thought she should be. Maybe Ty was right, maybe she needed to talk with her mom and ask some of the questions that had been playing on her mind.

"Now get out of my room and go back to your own comfy house with two people that love you very much and start living like the loved child that you are", said Ty, with a smile, as he lay out on his new bed.

To be continued...

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	6. Chapter 6

What If Chapter 6.

As Amy walked out of the barn, she was still in shock. Could what Ty had just told her really have been true? There was no way that someone could have endured what he had stated he had gone through and still have been as controlled in his telling of the story. Yet she could not get it out of her mind she had watched him and not once had there been a sign that he was not telling the truth. Nor could she tell that he was trying to say something to her just to make her have feelings, one way or the other. Only when he had talked about her mom had he looked at her or off into the distance as if he was looking to the future.

She looked up and realized she was at the front door and did not remember getting there. As she opened the door, she walked in thinking about what Ty had said, and she realized he was right - she was loved.

"Is that you, Amy?" Marion spoke from the kitchen.

"Yes, mom, it is," Amy replied.

As she walked into the kitchen, both Amy and Marion's eyes met and they both cried that they were sorry as if they were one. They then reached out and embraced each other, holding on as if they were afraid they might lose them it they let go.

"Mom," declared Amy, "I am sorry that I did not tell you about Jesse and that I was sneaking off. I know that was wrong but I was not thinking about anyone but me at the moment."

"I am sorry that I made myself seem so unapproachable to you that you felt like you couldn't talk to me about things that were troubling you," Marion answered.

"And I am sorry I opened my big mouth for anything other than putting food in it," came Jack's voice from the living room. They all had a good laugh at his statement and realized how they had all overreacted and spoken out of turn.

"Speaking of which, I don't think any of us ate much of the food that Ty brought us for supper," agreed Marion as she looked at the table. "Well, except for Ty. It looks like he finished his supper at least. I will heat up our food in the microwave and we can all finish," said Marion.

As they sat back down at the table to finish what they had started, Jack spoke up saying: "I am a lucky man to have two such wonderful women in my life." Then he proceeded to eat his food.

"Mom, I think I may have been wrong about Ty," Amy commented as she hung her head.

"Why do you say that?" asked Marion. What had brought this line of conversation up, she wanted to know more.

"I was hiding in the barn when you and Ty came to take his stuff up to the loft and I heard you two talking for a long time and I was angry at you and at him."

"Why were you angry at Ty? What has he done to warrant your being angry with him", replied a now visibly upset Marion.

Before she could continue, Amy said, "you are right, mom. I had no reason, but I was anyway, so in fact I became **so** angry that I threw a bucket and it hit the stall wall andspooked Paint." Now the story had Jack's attention.

"What do you mean you threw a bucket at Paint? I should skin you alive for pulling such a stupid stunt!"

"I did not throw it at Paint, but yes, grandpa, you should and I am sorry. Anyway, Ty heard the noise and came down to see what all the commotion was about, when I told him, he shrugged his shoulders at me and said "looks like you have it in hand"and went back upstairs. I was sure he was going to tell you, so I went to tell him what I thought of him. He listened, until I was through, and then he proceeded to call me out on my attitude. He opened up and told me about his life, when he pointed out to me how much I was loved I all but called him a liar. But he continued with his story and then told me to come back to the house to the people who loved me," disclosed Amy, tears in her eyes. She now knew he had been right, since she saw the people seated at the table in a completely different light after having the talk with Ty.

"Yes, baby, we love you and always will, no matter what," answered Marion.

"Did you know that Ty was an abused child? Did he tell you how he grew up and the things he did just to live" Amy probed Marion wondering just how much she actually knew.

"I don't know that I know his whole story, but I know that he had a hard life and he did a lot of stupid things when he was younger. I feel he has a good heart though or he would not be here," Marion told Amy while looking right at Jack.

"I agree with you, mom," declared a smiling Amy.

"Listen to my two bleeding hearts. Did you girls forget that he almost beat someone to death? That he has a violent temper? Do you really want him around here - Marion, you really want that type of boy around your daughter?" declared an exasperated Jack. How they could even think of having someone like him around was beyond his wildest thought. Well, it would not take him long to show them the error of their ways.

Amy spoke up. "if someone came into our house and began to beat mom, what would you do? Would you just sit and watch it happen? What if that happened almost every day, would you have finally seen enough, would you explode and beat that guy up? Would you then say that you had an explosive temper and needed to be put away," exclaimed a very emotional young girl to her grandfather. Looking right at Jack and the expression on his face, Amy continued, "I didn't think so. All mom and I are asking is to give him a chance. I know that I think he deserves one and as mom has said she does too or he wouldn't be here."

Jack sat at the table wondering what this Ty character had said to Amy or Marion that had them thinking this way. This was not the same girl who had stomped out of the house a short time ago, mad at the world; however she had been mostly angry at her mom along with this new distraction she had brought into their lives. He had not seen her stand up for anything or anyone like this since she was a young girl and he had been going to put down a puppy that had been badly hurt by a horse stepping on him. No matter what he expressed to her, she would not let him give up on the pup. She had nursed him back to health, even when the vet had stated the best thing to do was put him out of his misery, as he would never be able to get around again. Between Marion, Lou and Amy, they had proceeded to prove everyone wrong and Buddy had become one of the best cow dogs he had ever had.

Lou… He had not thought about her in a long time. Why she had come to mind now, he didn't know. She had left years ago, saying she wanted to go to college to learn something new. Because she had been so smart, Lou hadhad many scholarship offers eventually taking the one farthest away one in the US. And she had not been in Canada since.

He knew she had always blamed him for her father, Tim, leaving, on the other hand though, had she known what he had become. A drunk who was abused his family by his actions and words she would see him as he did a no-good father and husband. But she has always been daddy's girl and thought that he was just sick. Not really understanding what he had become with the pills and drinking. Marion had always been careful not to argue with him in front of the girls. Then that one night in the barn they had been in a fight and Jack had walked in and seen Tim push Marion and raised his hand as if to hit her. That was then end and he had sent Tim away that night not even allowing him to say good bye to the girls. Marion had never let him tell Lou about that and as a consequence they had lost her for maybe ever, as she was now a big shot finance woman in New York City with a boyfriend they only knew about because Amy had told them.

Jack looked up at Marion and Amy and realized he had been lost in thought and not wanting to answer the question "what are you thinking he said. "We had better finish supper as it is late and we have a lot to things to do tomorrow," declared a now thoughtful Jack. "We will see what kind of worker this Ty Borden is, and if he is worth your trust.  
…

As Ty lay on his bed, he began to think about all that had just happened. He had told Amy, a girl who had seemed to dislike him from the moment she set eyes on him, his life story. What had made him do such a thing? Sure, he if he was going to be around the ranch, and for Marion's sake he had hoped they would get along, but now he was not so sure. If what she had heard about him before had made her not want him around, how much stronger would her feeling be now she had all this new information.

He had not been able to sleep well, because he assumed that in the morning the family would tell him to pack his bags and go back to detention. He hoped that would not be the case, as he found himself, strangely, liking what little he had seen of this family and wanted in the worst way to be part of it - well, as much as he could anyway. Mostly he knew he would miss Marion, even though he hardly knew her, and wanted more than ever to prove that her trust in him had not been misplaced. Thinking of this he finally drifted off to sleep.

Ty was wakened from a sound sleep when he heard the noise coming from the barn below him. He looked at his watch. It was 6 am. Who in their right mind would be up and about at this time of day, he thought, turning over in the bed putting his pillow over his head.

Suddenly he felt something jab him in the back and his reaction was to sit up quickly so he could turn to see the source of the jab. His fist was pulled back ready to strike whoever had been disturbing his sleep.

"What the he–" he started to say when he found himself looking into the eyes of Jack. "I am sorry," Ty started to say before Jack interjected.

"I kind of figured you might react like that and that's why I poked you with this," he said, waving a pitchfork in his hand. "You are here because my daughter seems to think I need help with the ranch work. Well, help should always be up before the boss and I am the boss and I am up every day at 5 am. You understand that there are no weekends on a ranch, right. There are horses to feed and stalls to clean daily. Then we have fences to fix, hay to pick up and stack, cows to check - and that is all before lunch. There are always things that need to be done and if you are going to be here, then you are going to do your part. Now, get dressed, because after that I will show you what you need to do before breakfast," declared Jack as he turned to walk down the stairs.

While the cool weather had made it good sleeping it also made him want to stay in the warmth of the covers. Ty threw back the cover and slowly put his feet on the cool floor. He now realized just how cool it got up in the loft at night. It made him think about winters and wondered if he would survive the cold. _._ Finally dressed, he went downstairs, where he found Jack waiting for him.

The old man pointed to the wide pitchfork with the tines close together and said. "Pick that up and come with me."

Ty picked up the pitchfork and followed Jack to the first stall. Jack opened the gate and walked in and as he pushed Paint to the side and said. "Every morning you will need to clean out the stalls and put down new bedding for the horses. You will scoop up the manure and put it in that wheel barrow and any place you see where they have urinated you will also clean up. Then putt down the new bedding."

Ty had never been around a horse in his life and now he was being told that he needed clean out the manure from their stalls. He was not so sure about this, but he had made a promise to himself, that he would do his best not to not disappoint Marion and her trust in him. He stood at the entry of the stall, fork in hand.

"What are you waiting for? An invitation?" chuckled Jack, as he watched Ty just standing there, looking like a little lost kid.

"There is a horse in there and I was waiting for you to take him out so I could clean-up," Ty explained.

"Well, you are just the maid and this is the horses' house. He will stay in his room while you do the housekeeping. Don't worry, he only bites and kicks people who are afraid of him," explained Jack smiling as he rubbed Paint's back. Watching a young man with a look of horror on his face not knowing if what Jack had said was true or if the old man was just stringing him along.

...To be continued...


	7. Chapter 7

What If: Chapter 7

When Ty finally walked into the stall, Jack walked out, and soon Ty realized he was all alone with this horse. He had a fork full of manure and was afraid to take a step as Paint started walking towards him. Ty dropped the manure and began looking for a way to get out of the stall. Paint however had turned and taken a step that put him between Ty and the door. Every step in a direction that Ty took was matched by Paint, as he continued to have his escape route cut off. Ty now felt himself in full panic mode and he backed up, realizing that he had backed himself into a corner in the stall. Or had this horse actually herded him there, he began to think as he watched the animal. He had heard that horses were smart, and now he was wondering if this one had outsmarted him.

Not knowing what to do next, Ty stood there and waited. Paint stomped the floor with his hoof and then started walking towards the new ranch hand again. Ty wanted to yell for help, but he was so afraid that he could not even make a sound. One step closer, the horse was just inches away andTy could feel the horse's breath on his face. Just as he was about to strike, Paint lowered his head and opened his mouth, ready to take a bite out of him, he was sure. Ty gathered up the nerve to flee when Paint reached out and nuzzled him.

Just then Jack walked back in the barn. Followed closely by Marion, they watched the action in the stall. Ty could hear a sound of disgust in Jack's voice as he said: "not you too, Paint!" This was followed by the sound of blow striking something and Jack yelling: "Ouch!"

"I don't believe you, Dad! Are you trying to drive Ty away?" an upset Marion voice was heard saying, as she turned to Ty standing in the stall, and motioned and said "come over here."

She could tell by the look on Ty's face he was not sure he could move, so she whistled at Paint and the horse's head came up and turned towards her. She held a carrot up for him to see and Paint turned and walked over to Marion taking the carrot from her hand he began to eat it"

"Ty, I am so sorry. My dad was playing a trick on you. When Paint saw you in the stall, he knew that it was time to play a game Jack has taught him. He herds dad like he was a calf driving him into the corner of the stall, and then usually he has a carrot in his jacket pocket and Paint reaches out and grabs it out. It is his morning treat. He is about as dangerous to you as a kitten, well unless he steps on you, Marion said chuckling now.

Finally able to talk, Ty said: "so he did outsmart me", _said a visibly shaken Ty Borden thinking out loud._ His hands still shaking and he could feel his heart racing. He stood there for a moment before he took a step towards Marion not sure that his legs would hold up if he took a step.

"Don't feel bad; he has been outsmarting Dad for years," Marion replied with a big smile, as she turned to Jack. "Ty is going into town with me to pick up some supplies."

"I thought you said he was here to work and help me out? Don't see how I am going to get much work out of him if you take him away," said Jack.

"Well, you can stay and clean out the stalls instead of having to go to town with me, so I am lightening your load. Besides after what you just pulled, I think it will do you some good to do a little work while you think about what you did!"

"Oh, so that is how this is going to work, huh? The little city boy can't take a little ribbing, so you have to take him away and coddle him? He leaves with you now and you can keep going all the way to his old home, because he will not be allowed back on _my ranch!_ " said a now very upset Jack.

"Please stop," Ty said interrupting the argument between Jack and Marion. "If it is okay with you two, I would like to finish what Jack has asked me to do first, then I would be happy to help you later," he said, looking at Marion. "Jack, I know you don't like or trust me, and I understand that. You were right in what you said last night - furthermore if I were a father and grandfather of Marion and Amy, I would probably feel the same way as you do and would not want someone with my track record around either. But if you will just give me one week before you make your decision of whether I stay or go to prove myself or not, I will do whatever you decide is best for Heartland." Ty then turned around, not waiting for a reply, picked up the pitchfork to finish the job he had started, of cleaning the stall.

Jack stood there watching Ty and then looking at Marion expressed his thoughts: "I still don't trust him, but I will trust your judgment this time and I agree to do what he has requested. Though this has to be on my terms, and if I feel you are in anyway trying to step in and protect him,again he is gone. Is that clear, Marion?"

Looking at her dad, Marion could see by the look on his face that he had just laid out the ground rules and there was going to be no room for arguments.  
"I understand, dad, and thank you for giving him a chance. I know he will do well," Marion stated.

"For your sake I hope he does," replied Jack.

"The reason I came to the barn", said Marion, "was not to start a fight. It was to tell you and Ty breakfast is ready, so need to come and eat."

As Marion walked out of the barn, Jack turned to Ty who had just finished with Paint's stall. Ty nodded and said, "I heard her."

"I will be in as soon as I finish the other two stalls and get cleaned up. You go ahead, I will be along shortly."

As Jack walked to the house, his mind was active as he thought about everything that had just gone on. He still was not in favor of having this Ty character around, but what he had just seen in the barn made him wonder if maybe the girls might not be seeing a truer picture of who Ty was _._

"Where is Ty?" Marion inquired when she saw Jack entering the house without him.

"Easy there now," answered Jack, "he told me to go and he would be here in a few minutes. I am not going to tell him after what he just said in the barn to us, to stop and come to the house. He is trying to impress someone and that someone is not me."

"What do you mean it is not you? of course it is, Dad. He knows you are the one who decides whether or not he gets to stay."

"Mom," Amy chimed in. "I have to agree with Grandpa. I know you both wondered what Ty told me last night, and while I shared some of that with you, what I didn't share was the one thing he said that really hit home with me. He told me that he was staying because for the first time in his life someone believed in him. So yes, mom, the reason Ty is trying so hard is because he feels he owes you for trusting and believing in him."

They heard Ty's steps on the porch and discontinued their conversation. A lot had been said and they all needed time to think about what that all meant.

"It's done," said Ty. "Well, almost. I did not empty the wheelbarrow because you did not tell me where to do it. I did find a pile near the barn outside, but wanted to know for sure that was where you wanted it before I emptied it. "

"Yep, that is the place. You can do that later. Come on in and clean up. It looks like the girls have a good breakfast for us," answered Jack."Well, Marion has anyway, Amy pours a mean glass of OJ," he disclosed with a smile.

A red-faced Amy tried to think of a comeback, but as usual, her grandfather had caught her flatfooted and he had taken that dig at her in front of Ty. Why that mattered, she did not know, but it did. Finally she said: "Thanks, grandpa. You are a good teacher," trying to toss it back to him as if to make it seem it did not matter as much as it did.

"OJ, sounds good," said Ty. Now it was his turn to feel a little uncomfortable. "I need to use the bathroom," he exclaimed as he had _that_ look on his face.

"Well, go!" answered Jack. "You don't need permission."

"Where is it?" cried a now panicking Ty.

They all could not help but smile and Jack just flat out laughed as he pointed across the living room to the open door that was barely visible. Ty did not waste any more time as he all but sprinted across the room, closing the door quickly behind him.

"Guess you forgot to tell him where the bathroom was," said Jack to Marion, hardly able to hold back busting out in laughter.

By the time Ty returned the breakfast was on the table and everyone had regained their composure. They all sat down and enjoyed a wonderful meal.

After he had finished eating, Ty stood up, gathered his dirty dishes and walked towards the sink, when Marion said: "that's okay. That is Amy's job, but I am sure she thanks you for your consideration."

"I don't expect anyone to wait on me. I can at least put these dishes in the sink," answered Ty.

"Thank you, Ty. I wish other people would learn such manners," said Amy, looking at her Grandpa.

"When you get as old and wise as I am you can sit and watch your grand children wait on you," Jack stated not even looking up from his food.

Marion pushed away from the table and said "We are leaving now to go and pick up some things from town. Is there anything that is not on this list?" she asked removing the list, from under the magnet on the fridge door.

"May I go with you?" asked Amy. "I want to see Soraya."

"No, not now. There are things you need to get finished here at the house and you have horses you need to look after. If you get your work done, maybe we can go back to Maggie's tonight and the two of you can go to a movie or something afterwards."

Amy had learned that there was no arguing with her mom, so she just nodded.

"Come, Ty, we have work to do. I want to be home by noon," declared Marion as she put on her boots, standing by the front door.

Ty followed Marion to the truck, and as he seated himself on the worn bench seat in the truck, he looked at Marion and inquired: "you sure you don't want Amy to go help you? I could stay and help Jack."

"No, Ty. I want to spend a little time with you. We have talked very little and I wanted to share with you a little more about Heartland. Maybe I should have already shared more before you came here. First of all, I am sorry for the way my dad and Amy have treated you so far. That too is my fault, because I failed to tell them about you before you showed up. In saying that, dad's mindset of late would have made it impossible to convince him. He is getting older, so he is trying to prove that he is still young. I am afraid that it will soon become too much for him and he will push himself to the point of making himself sick or getting hurt. That is why I asked you to come here and help him - well, actually us."

"Why did you choose me over someone else? Why didn't you just go hire a hand who you did not have to train?"

Marion had a hard time looking Ty in the eyes as she shared the answer to his question with him.

"Ty, remember when you said you were not going to come out here and be my free labor? Well, in a way that is one of the reasons you are here. I plan on paying you, but I may have a hard time doing so sometimes and since by the agreement of your probation I don't have to as long as I feed and house you so you were right, you were my best option from that standpoint."

"So, what you are telling me is I was just cheap or free labor to you?!" exclaimed Ty. He was now beginning to get upset and to rethink his view of Marion. She was like everyone else, looking out for herself and using him as a tool.

" _However_ , that was not the primary reason," explained Marion quickly. "Was it a factor? Yes, it was, and I would not have been fair to you in telling you the rest of the reason before I shared that with you. I would rather you know the bad first and then let it be tempered by what I feel is the good and not the other way around," she continued. "I need to go back a few years for this to make sense. – When I was still married my then husband, Tim, I sponsored a young man, much as I am doing with you now. He lived in that very same loft and though he spent more years there than you will, he became very much a part of our family. He turned his life around and is now our Vet. I tell you this because I watched you for a long time at the detention center. During my first visit I told them what I was looking for and was allowed to observe the young men whose names I had been given. On my third visit I thought I had found the young man I wanted, but just before I told them, I saw you in the far corner of the play area, sitting alone, away from everyone else. I watched as you watched the children at play and noticed how they came to you when they had a problem. I then watch as two bigger boys started pushing a younger child around. You did not hesitate, but jumped up and stepped in between them, and so they decided that they would take you on. That was the first fight I observed you in. That day made me doubt the choice I was about to make."

"You are telling me that it was me fighting that caused you to take me? Now I am really confused," expressed Ty, shaking his head.

"No, not the fighting, but the reason you fought,"corrected Marion. "I don't agree with fighting and think you maybe could have handled it differently, but I was impressed that you stood up for others, knowing that you were the one who would end up in trouble. That showed me that you had strong beliefs and no matter how it appeared to them at the center, you had morals that were not always on display. I am not sure you even realize how strong your sense of right and wrong is."

"Yeah, it is strong alright," declared Ty. "It is right if it is for me and wrong if it is for you! I have stolen since I was very young. I have lied, cheated and taken advantage of people for my own desires. I lived a life and did things around women that I would not want around my family - if I had one - and you can sit there and tell me I have morals! I may have lots of things, but morals are not one of them. If you think you see something like that in me and hope to change me you might as well send me back then. As much as I would like to prove you right I don't see that as ever happening."

"It is that last statement you just made I will use to prove my point. Sometimes we do things because we feel we have to, not because we want to. I know a bit about your life before you ended up in detention and I have a feeling you may have shared even more of that life with Amy last night. Whatever you said made a profound impression on her, and when she came back to the house she was a different girl than the one who had stomped out earlier. I know Amy and someone who she did not like only a short time before would not have been able to change her mind about them if he was not completely honest. She is not very good around people, but she does seem to know when people are lying to her. That is not to say she is perfect, none of us are, or that she always makes the right decisions - dating Jesse is a perfect example of that. However, I have to say that I agree with her assessment of you and with what she told dad last night, you deserve a chance", Marion explained.

Ty, sat in the seat of the old truck as they drove towards town and began to think about what Marion had just said. He normally would have continued this accusations but now maybe she also deserved a chance.

...to be continued...


	8. Chapter 8

What If (part 8)

Ty sat in the seat and watched and listened to Marion as she spoke. He was not able to fully comprehend what she was saying as he was still stuck on the fact she had, at least partially, brought him to Heartland as free labor. That thought had him ready to ask her to stop the truck and let him out so he could have walked back to Heartland and been gone before she was home from town. Yet, just like he had at the detention center, he listened to what she was saying. She had been honest with him, well, after the fact that was, but she could have waited for him to find out on his own.

"I would be lying if I said that I was not angry with you right now," Ty finally replied. "I need to do a little thinking, so if you don't mind, I would like to finish the ride to town in silence."

Marion looked at the young man seated across from her and nodded her head. She realized that she had just dropped an information bomb on him and his request was more than reasonable.

Ty began to let his mind work as he tried to digest what he had just heard. He was surprised that he had heard anything after Marion had told him that he was there as free labor. He had never trusted adults, and when he had met her he had taken a chance, because she had stood up for him something that no adult had ever done in his life. Now that one person to whom he had given his trust to had broken it and they were back at square one. He had listened as she talked about why she had chosen him, and he found it hard to believe that she had seen him beat up kids and still have wanted him around She had trusted him when no one else had and that had made a difference. Maybe it was still his turn to - as she had said of him - to give her a chance. He had asked for a week to prove himself; well, maybe that week would allow her time to prove herself to him as well.

They pulled up in front of Maggie's and Marion got out of the truck without saying a word. As she walked into the diner, Ty sat and continued his thought process. Shortly he decided that he would stay for the week, mostly for himself, as he had asked for the time and it would look bad if he did not at least do his part. At the end of the week he could call Clint or just get in his truck and drive away. At this moment that was what he was thinking of doing just leaving and getting away from everyone everywhere. He opened the door of the truck took a deep breath and stepped out. He remembered the first night he had come to Heartland and had stopped by the dinner. That girl had told him what he was getting into he should have listened to her. When he walked into Maggie's the first person he saw was Soraya and she smiled and said:

"Looks like I was wrong; you lasted at least one day."

"Looks like you live here," he replied in turn.

"Seems like it sometimes, we own the place and Mom could never resist the free labor, "said Soraya. Marion who was about to say something and stopped in her tracks, and a look of anger quickly crossed Ty's face. She had been around people enough to know that she had said something that had not set well with either of them.

Ty, lowered his head and wished he had kept his mouth shut when he walked in as he had not really been in the talking mood and now he just wanted to escape. But instead he waited and watched Marion at the counter to see what she would do. He saw her take a breath and let it out then she returned her gaze to Soraya, and he heard her ask Soraya how much Ty had spent on dinner the night before and she told her and then continued with a smile:

"And he gave me a $5.00 tip on top of it hoping to break through the freeze that had just coming into the dinner."

"Thanks," said Marion and then proceeded to place her order for the feed she needed for the Heartland animals. She was afraid to turn around, because she had not heard the door of the dinner open or close and knew Ty was standing behind her still. She could tell by the look on Soraya's face and the comment about the tip that he had heard her comment on free labor and that it had changed his demeanor. How she wished she could say or do that would help make this moment go away.

"I will have them brought out to you in a few minutes," replied Soraya. Sensing the tension was still there she tried again to break the ice. "So, you can't talk anymore?" she directed her question to Ty trying to get a response from him. Amy had called her and told her all about her talk with him and how he had been so warm and friendly when she had been anything but to him beforehand. She was curious about this boy who had made such an impression on her best friend. But right now she was wondering if she was talking about the guy.

"Not in the mood for conversation right now," said **still** a visibly upset Ty.

Before Soraya could respond Marion broke in "That is my fault, Soraya. I lied to him about why I brought him to Heartland and told him about it on the way here. What you said when he walked in I am sure did not help his mood either as it was what I had told him he was, free labor. So don't be too hard on him, I don't think I would be in a very talkative mood either," **Marion explained.**

Ty stood there, again listening to Marion as she took the blame for his attitude. Though it would have been easy to sit back and let her, he was not used to someone not turning on him when they had the chance, so now he felt that he needed to say something.

"She is not to entirely to blame,no matter what she said. I am the one who decided to act this way, no one can make me be this way. It is all on me." Ty looked at Marion and continued, "she took a chance on me and while I am upset with her at the moment she is the first person in a long time who believed in me." What he said may have been directed towards Soraya, but it was meant for Marion. It was his way of saying "I accept your apology and am willing to give you the same chance to prove yourself you gave me".

Ty looked up and saw a man taking a hand truck loaded with bags of feed out the door and asked Soraya: "Is that ours?" He pointed to the man as he exited the side doors, and she nodded.

Soraya had known Marion since she was a little girl and at times felt as if she was her second mom. As she watched the interaction between Ty and her, she was impressed by both of them. The past few years had been hard on Marion and for a while she had done alright after Tim had left. But after had Lou left for the States and never came back home, she had gone into a tail spin for a while. That had only been somewhat righted when she had taken to taking in every troubled horse she heard about and poured her life into them.

Amy and she had talked about this and it had seemed like the horse healing, had become an obsession with her. She continually drug Amy along and insisted that she help and be a part of it, even when Amy had wanted to be doing something else. It was like Marion was afraid to let her daughter out of her sight, holding her as close as she could. When Soraya had shared this with her mom, Maggie had shared with her about what Marion was going through and how Lou's leaving had left her even more afraid that Amy would soon go the same way.

Now there was this new twist to the story. This boy she knew only as Ty, from what she had been told by Amy, who came from a very difficult background and should not be someone who was taken lightly. When she heard what Amy had said, Soraya was afraid for her friend and told her so, only to be scolded when Amy told her how, what Ty had said had made her realize how much she was loved. Now she had seen Ty in action and had to agree with her friend; there was more to this juvenile delinquent than met the eye. He had taken what had been a very heartfelt statement of her unfair treatment of him from Marion and turned it around and took the blame on himself. That was not something she was used to seeing in the boys she had been around and now made her also want to know more about this handsome young man.

Ty helped to load the feed into the truck, he thanked the man who had brought it out and closed the tailgate. The physical labor had helped to clear his mind making him more calm and ready to face the rest of the day. Marion walked up and held out $40.00 to Ty, here this is yours.

"What's this for?" he asked. Ty was confused she had talked about him being free labor now she was going to give him $40.00 for helping load the truck.

"What you paid for dinner last night, plus the tip" she said placing the money in his hand before turning to open the door to the truck.

Ty stood there staring at the money then looking at the departing Marion he replied. "I paid for dinner because that is what I wanted to do, no one made me pay for it," trying to hand the money back to Marion, but she slid into the seat behind the wheel and closed the door, saying as she did: "if you are coming home with me, you best get in."

Ty walked around the truck, opened the door slid in, closing the door behind him still looking at the money in his hand, not knowing what to do or say next.

Marion started the truck, put it into gear and started to back up when they hear a car horn. She watched as a vehicle pull in right behind the truck and stop. Marion looked in the mirror and said: "Shit…" then saying to Ty: "you wait here."

As Marion exited the truck, Ty heard a voice say: "hello Marion! You are a hard person to get hold of. I have called and left messages for you and you have not answered any of them."

"Ben, this is not the place for us to talk. I will come in as see you in a few days, just tell me when", Marion's voice replied. She was not in the mood for this conversation she had already had to ask for Maggie to extend her credit and now this was almost more than she could bear.

"I have heard that one before. The last time we had an appointment you had an emergency with a horse and the time before that… Shall I go on? So, now is the time and the place! I am telling you right now that if I don't have a payment on my desk by close of business Friday, I am going to start the process of foreclosure on Heartland, do you understand me?"

Marion stood there in shock, though she knew that she should not have been. Ben was right, she had put of meeting with him, and worse, she had put off all of the bills for so long because she had given up. Now the loan she had taken out to send Lou to 6 years of school in the states and then setting her up in an apartment in New York was due. Well, it was actually overdue as she had stopped making payments on it when Lou had told her that she was not coming home and never wanted to see her again.

Marion now felt that she had no way - or at least she did not think she did - to pay it off. Why had she let things get so out of hand? She had lost herself in self-pity and had let everything around her fall into disrepair and it was now falling in on her. She had taken over the finances of Heartland years ago when her mom had died, as the men in their lives did not seem to have a good business sense, when it came to money anyway. Marion had done well when the whole family was around, but the first the loss Tim and his income and then of Lou had taken its toll and now it was time to pay the piper, so to speak.

As he turned to walk away, Ben looked at Marion and said: "remember - a payment on my desk by Friday." Then he got in his car and drove away.

Marion then realized that she had never closed the door and Ty had heard everything. As she slid behind the wheel she could tell by the look on Ty's face that he too was a bit concerned by what he had just witnessed.

"I am sorry you had to hear that, Ty. I will understand if you decide to leave when we get home. I am sorry you are in anyway mixed up in all of this."

Ty sat there looking at Marion and had to ask: "What was all of that about?"

Marion felt she had to talk to someone, so she began.

"This all began about 10 years ago when Tim and I separated. Lou - that is Amy's sister if you didn't already know - was very close to her dad and she blamed Jack and me for that loss. It did not help that I went through a rough patch when I felt I had reached the end of my rope, a friend helped me through the bad times. We knew each other as we both worked with horses. I will admit that I probably showed him more attention than maybe I should have and when I finally came to my senses, we parted as friends and kept in touch. To Lou that friendship was the reason her dad had to leave and she never knew how her father's accident had taken its toll on Tim's and my relationship.

"He had become hooked on alcohol and prescription drugs. He felt that because he could not be the champion he had once been, he was of no use and it drug him down even farther, and he used the drugs and alcohol to make those feelings go away. But they didn't son he began to lash out, with me being his target most of the time. Jack caught him one time when he got physical with me. He kicked him off of Heartland, out of our lives. When I tried to protest he told me that if I wanted to follow him to go ahead, but the girls stayed with him and he would not allow Tim, and if I left as well, to ever come back to the ranch. I knew he was right and filed for divorce."

Marion continued with an almost lost look on her face: "Lou was a smart, actually very smart girl and she wanted to go to college and had all kinds of scholarship offers from Canadian schools. But she wanted to get away from Jack and me and took an offer from a school in the States. The scholarship only paid a small amount of what was needed for a non-resident student. I took out loans and put her through six years of school, hoping that by paying all her expenses that would show her how much I loved her. She finished school and took a very prestigious job in New York City, then sent a letter telling us how she would not be coming home - ever. That was the last time I heard from her. She writes to Amy twice a year for her birthday and Christmas."

Marion put the truck in gear and back out and started home. "The rest is history, so to speak. I stopped caring about almost everything, especially the finances, and got lost in taking in jobs that only used up our money and never paid any of the costs. I never told Jack. He never asked as he had never taken part in the business part of the ranch before, and since I did not say anything he thinks things are still OK. Now I have to go home and tell him that the ranch that has been in his family for generations is about to, at least be broken up, and sold to pay off my bills or lost completely."

****************to be continued***************


	9. Chapter 9

**Written to take place before season one Marion is still alive and this is the WHAT IF question of how things might have been different had she lived.**

 ** _Sorry this has taken so long hopefully it will be almost worth the wait._**

What If chapter 9

The drive home was quiet for the most part Ty could only sit and think about everything that Marion had shared with him. When he had come to Heartland and seen the house, the barns, all the animals and land, he had had no idea that they could be in such bad shape financially, though he should have had some inkling from what Soraya had shared with him the first night when she said they did not have the money to hire a ranch hand. The more he thought about it, the more he saw how what Marion had shared with him on the way to Maggie's should not have taken him quite so much by surprise. Now the latest development, well, that was different, and he felt for the lady sitting behind the wheel.

Why had she opened up so much to a complete stranger? Marion thought to herself. Ty really had no part in what she had shared, nor did he as far as she knew - have the means or know a way out of the situation she found herself in. She knew that she was not going to be forced to share with Jack how she had failed him, and the possibilities that she could come up with to pay off her debt were not anything that would sit well with her father

They pulled up in front of the barn, and Ty noticed two horses saddled and tied to the fence.

"You unload the truck, Ty. Amy will tell you where everything goes," said Marion as she stepped out of the truck and walked to meet Jack and Amy as they came out of the barn. "Amy, could you please help Ty by telling him where everything goes?" she asked.

" Grandpa and I were just getting ready to go check on the cows," replied Amy.

Just do as I asked," snipped Marion.

This caught Amy completely by surprise and was so unlike her mom, but she had seen it before and knew there was no use in arguing with her. "Yes, Mom" was her reply.

As Amy walked toward the truck Marion turned to Jack and said, "Dad, I need to talk to you, and I think that from the back of a horse may be the best place. I will help you with the cows."

Jack looked at his daughter and could see that something was eating at her. He also knew that when she said she wanted to talk on horseback it was not just being on the horse but she wanted to be alone with him, and from that he knew what she had to say was not something she wanted Amy to hear.

"Okay with me," he replied, putting his hand on Marion's shoulder as they turned and walked to the horses.

As they stepped up in the saddle, Jack turned to Amy and Ty and said: "Make sure you get my money's worth out of him. After you are done with putting the feed away, you can ride out to the north pasture with Ty and show him the fence that needs mending."

"You are going to trust him to fix a fence?" said Amy pointing to Ty.

Jack was thinking of his daughter and was not ready for her remark, and barked at her. "If he can't do then you had better teach him do you understand me."

Amy lowered her head and mumbled "what's wrong with him" as she turned away.

"It's my legs that are getting old my ears work just fine and you do as you are told or we will have a talking when I get back."

"Yes Grandpa", she replied, as she knew that no other answer would do.

Ty and Amy watched as Jack and Marion rode away.

"What's with Mom and it seems to have rubbed off on Grandpa." Amy stated as she stared right at Ty.

"Don't look at me, I didn't do anything," he replied.

"Well then, can you explain why she is acting the way she is?"

"Is that any different from how she normally acts?" Ty asked trying to deflect the question that he did not want to answer or know if he should. "I have known her for a total of 2 days, so how would I know how she acts."

But this time the words came out as defensive, and Amy picked up on the changed tone.

"So, you do know! What is going on, Ty. That is not the Mom I know. Something is really bothering her and I need to know what it is."

"I don't know if I can say anything, Amy. I overheard something that does not really pertain to me, and if she could have, your Mom would not have let me hear it."

This only peaked Amy's curiosity even more.

"Ty, you have to tell me! I won't tell Mom, I promise."

"Famous last words… I am sorry, Amy, but I can't. This is something that you should hear from family, not me. Besides, I kind of like it here and would like to stay around. If I go putting my nose in everyone's business I will wear out my welcome, I am afraid. Let's get this stuff unloaded."

Amy wanted to pry more but she was more impressed with the stance that Ty had taken. He had chosen to possibly anger her by not giving in to her demands instead of just telling her what he knew. He was right though; he did not know her Mom, and if he had, he would have known the road he had taken was the one she would have hoped he would. Maybe after they had gotten the work done she could get him to talking and he would slip up and she could figure it out.

They dropped the tailgate of the truck and Amy went to get the wheelbarrow so they could take more than one bag of feed at a time to the barn. When she turned around with the wheelbarrow she saw that Ty had gotten into the truck and was backing it up to the barn door.

When he stepped out she heard him say "no use moving them any farther than we have to" as he began to put the bags in the wheelbarrow.

"Well, that's the last bag," said Ty as he tossed it on the stack. "Now let's get in the truck and you can go show me where this fence is that needs mending."

"About that; there is no road, we have to ride out to it."

Amy was thinking about how Ty had acted around the horses earlier and began to wonder if he even knew how to ride.

"Okay, I will take my bike," Ty responded with a smile as he thought of taking his bike out for an off road ride. Ty saw by the look on Amy's face she was not too sure about his statement. "What? I am a good off road rider. I have been all over these mountains - it is a lot of fun."

"I guess it could be, but I have a question for you: how deep of water can you ride your bike through?"

"Oh I have seen the steams around here and it's not gonna be a problem. I can ride though up to 18 inches. Why" asked Ty wondering why Amy had asked him that question unless maybe she was testing him, but for what reason he was not sure.

Amy did not want to cause an argument about his ability but she knew that the only place to ford the creek to where they had to cross could be as high as 3 to 4 feet at times and never less than 2 ½ feet and it was too wide to carry the bike across.

When she relayed her thoughts, Ty gave her a quizzical look and asked. "So how do we get there then?"

"We take the horses," was her reply.

….

"So why are we taking a ride? I know you have several things you wanted to get done today," Jack probed as he stared at his daughter riding next to him. "What do you need to say to me that you could not tell me around Amy?"

"You always could read me, Dad," said Marion. "I don't know where to start, but I know that no matter where start I know it will not be easy for me to say or for you to hear."

"Just spit it out. We can't fix something if we don't know what's broken," was Jack's reply.

"Remember when Lou left for college?" began Marion.

"How could I forget? It was probably the second saddest day in my life. I had a feeling that when we said goodbye that it might be forever."

Marion looked at her dad and exclaimed: "You knew or at least felt that and you did not say anything or try and stop me from letting her go? You let my little girl walk out and now I may never see her again. How could you have done that, Dad?"

"Didn't figure it was my place to interfere - she is your daughter after all **.** "

"Well, you should have! Because you letting her leave might have cost you this ranch!"

As soon as it was out, Marion realized she had let her anger blurt out what she had wanted to be so careful about explaining to her dad.

A stunned Jack pulled his horse to a stop and stared at Marion.

"What did you just say? Did I hear you right - that we might lose the place because Lou went to school?"

"I am sorry, Dad. I did not mean for it to come out like that, but the short answer is… yes."

"I don't see how her going away should have anything to do with losing the ranch," replied Jack. "Unless there is more to this story than what you have told me."

"Okay, for the long version; when Lou left, her scholarship only paid for part of the tuition, board and room. Then there was all the miscellaneous stuff, then she wanted to go on to get her masters and that was even more. Dad, I let my emotions take over and I tried to buy her love."

Jack tilted his head and he looked at the sad face of his daughter and wondered what had him more bothered: the fact that Lou had hurt her that bad or that she did not even know or care that she had. The ranch was part of his life but Marion and he girls were his life, and right now he could see that what was most precious to him was about to crumble, and if she fell she would break into a million pieces.

"How much did that love cost us?" Jack asked, even though he wished he did not have to.

"It is up to almost $200,000, now with the interest and everything", was Marion's reply. "I am so sorry, Dad. I got into such a–"

"Don't worry about that right now. We have more important things to talk about. I am the one who should be saying I am sorry for not seeing how much Lou leaving hurt you. And it is all my fault for not telling her why I did what I did."

"No, Dad, that was a decision we made together. We just wanted her not to think ill of Tim."

"We succeeded there very well… She is probably still in contact with him and we are the ones she hates. As well as being in debt…" said an exasperated Jack. "The debt is going to be hard to fix but we can do it if we just tighten up our belts a little bit here and there."

"That is the problem, Dad; we only have till Friday at noon," Marion confessed.

...To be continued...


	10. Chapter 10

"A horse? You have to be kidding me, right?" was Ty's response.

"I was afraid of that… You have never ridden, have you?" asked Amy.

Ty's manly pride started to kick in as he gave her his curt reply.  
"What is so hard about riding a stupid horse? I can ride a bike, so riding a horse should not be a problem."

Amy wanted so badly to tell Ty that horses could sense fear, and after the way he had acted with Paint this morning, she knew that there was at least a little fear in him. But she decided to withhold judgment as she had seen some people who took right to riding.

"Okay. You can help me saddle those two up", she said **,** pointing to the two horses standing in their stalls.

"No problem," replied Ty. He stood there as Amy opened the door of the stall and walked in. She held out a small carrot in the palm of her hand and called the horse by name before reaching up and hooking the strap to his halter and led him out. She walked over to the wall and pulled down a brush and a funny looking thing with a handle and short metal teeth. She then went back to the horse she had tied to a rope across and open area in the barn.

Amy had been watching Ty to see what he would do and when she started to curry and brush her horse out, she looked at him and said: "What are you waiting for? He is not going to come out of the stall by himself."

"You want me to go in there with him to bring him out?" Ty asked.

"I don't know of any other way for him to get out. He has not learned how to open the door yet, so yes I guess you have to go bring him out," said Amy as she tried to hide her smile by keeping her horse between her and Ty. She had been with her mom this morning, jumping all over Jack for pulling the stunt he had, but she had to admit she loved to tease him as well.

She watched as Ty took the strap from the nail by the door and slowly opened the door, before closing it quickly and turning to Amy. "Do I need to feed him a carrot too? And if I do, how do I hold it? Like you did in your palm or by the end like your mom did by this morning?"

Amy found herself impressed by how observant Ty had been. The fact that he had thought about it enough to ask went beyond him being frightened of the horse.

"Yeah, that always helps. There are some more, over on the grain bin. I usually break it up and put it in the palm of my hand, but if you are more comfortable doing like mom did, that is fine as well."

Ty picked up the carrot and opened the door of the stall again and stepped in. When the horse started towards him he had to fight the urge to step back out of the stall and close the gate. but He could not let Amy see that he was in fact at least a little scared by these big animals. Ty held out the carrot and then stepped to the side as he had seen Amy do before he hooked the lead strap into the halter, and was surprised as he walked out that the horse followed him without him even having to tug on the lead. He walked up to the place where Amy was finishing her grooming, and so she removed the tethers from her horse and led him away, leaving the space open to Ty and his horse. Ty did as Amy had and tethered the horse. He then picked up the brush and curry comb and proceeded to do what he had seen.

"Don't be worried about the curry comb, they actually like it. You can push pretty hard, kind of like a big back scratcher to them. It also removes all the stuff from their coat that could make a sore when you place the pad and saddle on him," Amy told him.

When he had finished, Ty walked over to where the saddles were and asked: "which one is one for that horse?"

Amy smiled and shook her head.

"Let's see… I think that one will fit you fine. The saddle is not for the horse, it is for the rider. You have to have the stirrups set for you. While having long stirrups may sound good **,** your butt will not agree with you at the end of the if they are too short, you will either be standing up all day and your legs will let you know about that as well, or you will sit all day and… well, we have talked about that. Your stirrups should be short enough so that you can stand up in them and clear the saddle. Every person has their own idea of what is right, but at the end of the day your legs and butt will tell you if you were right in the setting. Of course you will be sore no matter what when we get back as this is all new to your body."

Ty liked the way Amy had taken the time to tell him about the saddle and stirrup setting without making him feel like the fool for asking about the saddle the way he had.

"I guess I can I can understand that. I know when I first started riding off road on my bike, my legs killed me. I guess it might be a little the same way with a horse," Ty said.

Talking to Amy had helped to settle him down a bit and so he picked up the saddle she had pointed to and carried it over to the horse. He had watched Amy, so he threw the blanket up and then the saddle, and just as he reached under the horse for the cinch, Amy spoke again as she walked over to him.

"Ty, remove the saddle please."

When he had done as he was asked, Amy readjusted the pad moving it a bit more forward on his withers and then told Ty to center the saddle on the pad.

"You had the saddle too far back and would have made him sore if you had ridden him long with it like that. You can tighten up the cinch now."

Ty reached under the horse and pulled the cinch strap to his side and then did as he had seen Amy do.

Amy walked over and got a bridle with a bit on it and went to put it on her horse, so Ty figuring that what was good for the saddle was also good for the bit. He reached up to take down the bridle and was stopped by Amy.

"No, he does not use a bit. We only use a hackamore on him."

This made Ty stop as he looked at the wall.

"What's a hackamore…?"

"See the leather rapped loop with a ball on the bottom of it? That is a hackamore

"It does not look much different from the halter he already has on,"Ty said.

"That is true, but he would know the difference. Nice thing about it is that it is a bit - no pun intended - easier to put on."

Amy had finished with her horse, so she went over to give Ty a hand. When they were finished, Ty was proud of himself and was actually looking forward to try riding for the first time. Ty had watched Marion and Jack swing up on the horse, so he started to put his foot in the stirrup when Amy stopped him - again.

"Whoa there, cowboy! First of all, you need to wear this," Amy told him as she handed him a helmet.

"What is that for? Jack was not wearing one nor was Marion, and I don't see one in your hand for you either, so what makes you think I am going to wear that thing?" replied Ty with a bit of disgust in his voice.

"Just trying to protect that pretty little head of yours when you fall off," chuckled Amy.

"Don't you mean IF I fall off…" Ty muttered.

"I always tell beginners that they need a helmet. You would be surprised how many beginners end up on the ground, it is a safety precaution just in case so you won't possibly get a head injury," Amy explained calmly.

"I thank you for looking out for me, but I will take the responsibility for my own head," Ty said.

"Well, don't say I didn't tell you," Amy replied, shaking her head as she hung the helmet back on the wall. When she turned around, she saw Ty foot in stirrup, getting ready to mount. Before she could say "stop!", Ty put his weight in the stirrup and started to swing up, only to find himself headed for the ground as the saddle twisted and ended up on the horses side instead of his back.

"Sorry!" she said, trying to hold back the laugh. "I should have told you the other thing… Some horses take a deep breath when you start to tighten up the cinch and Pegasus clearly did, so you always have to check and re-tighten it if you need to before you try to mount or what happened to you will happen, or worse you will be on his back when he lets out the breath and your saddle will turn while you are riding. That usually does not happen when you are sitting still."

Lying on his back, his head only inches away from the horses hoof, Ty looked up and exclaimed: "You trying to get me killed? I should have had a helmet on, I could have gotten hurt!" This was all he could think of to say at the moment. He wanted to be angry, but had to admit that Amy had tried to warn him and he had decided he knew it all. He was quickly finding out that there was more to riding horse than just jumping in the saddle and he would try and be a little more cooperative from now on. Well, at least till he had figured it out a bit more, anyway.

Getting to his feet, Ty looked at Amy as she tried to hide the smile that tried to cover her laughter. "Thought that was funny, didn't you?"

"Well, not till I saw you were okay, but yes, it was rather comical!" chuckled Amy before she saw the smile and Ty making a face at her. She finally let it out, laughing so hard she had to sit down.

Ty started to laugh with her as he thought of what she must have seen.  
"Is there anything more you want to tell me before I try this again…?"

"Maybe you should start with putting the saddle back on his back, then wait till we get outside and then tighten it again. Also, I guess I should tell you that Pegasus is a bit older, but he was a rodeo horse that belonged to my dad. So you best be aware; he starts quickly, stops almost quicker and has been known to turn on a dime and give you 9 cents change. As I think about it, maybe we should switch horses and you should ride Copper. Here, he might be a little more your speed", she said, handing him the reins.

"Oh, so you want to take the sport bike and give me the scooter, is that what you are saying?" said Ty, feeling his manly pride starting to kick in again. "Well, I think I will stick with Pegasus. After all, you said he was a man's horse."

"Suit yourself," replied Amy, realizing she should have traded horses to start with, but also knowing that there would be no taking Pegasus now.

The **y** walked outside the barn and she watched as Ty gave and extra tug on the cinch to make sure it was good and tight. She had picked up the tool bag for fixing the fence and tied it behind the saddle on Copper and then swung up in the saddle. Waiting till Ty had done the same, they started down the lane.

"See? There is nothing to this," said Ty, sitting in the saddle, feeling like he had it all figured out. _This was kind of fun_ , he thought to himself. _Why are we going so slow? She said he was fast._ But _how fast was that?_ he wondered. Ty had seen a few western movies, and so he pulled his legs out and kicked them in, saying "get-up!"

He thought he heard Amy say "don't!", but it was too late, and Ty was grasping for the saddle horn as Pegasus had almost jumped out from under him as he went from a slow walk to full speed in almost one jump. Panic was setting in and Ty remembered what they did when this happened, as he had seen it on the movies, so hanging on the horn with one hand - still not back in the saddle - he pulled on the reins and yelled "whoa!". Pegasus did as he was trained, he sat on his rear legs coming to a skidding stop and Ty continued over his head, luckily landing on the grassy side of the road with a thud.

This time Amy was scared as she kicked Copper into action and rushed to where Ty had hit the pulled Copper up, swinging down from the saddle, just in time to see Ty sitting up to watch her.

"Guess I should learn to get off like you the next time, huh?" he said, looking down a little embarrassed. "You still want to trade horses?"

...To be continued...


	11. Chapter 11

_This story takes place before season one of Heartland. It was written to answer a question asked by someone what it Marion Had never died_

 _Sorry this has taken so long hopefully my life will slow down a bit and I can make this a more regular type of thing._

Jack sat in the saddle and looked at Marion. He could see she was about to cry and that was not something he had seen since she was an emotional teen. He was trying to gather his thoughts and say the right words.

"Honey, we will just have to figure this out. We have till Friday, and a lot can happen between now and then."

Marion sat there looking at her father.

"You have always been the optimist as long as I have known you…" she smiled little absentmindedly. "I have never been able to tell if something is really bothering you. I know when you are angry and when you are frustrated with things in life, but when it comes to something like this, that involves family, I have never been about to read you. It makes me wonder if you ever see the negative side of the things? Dad, that is only - counting today - four days from now, less than 96 hours… There is no way we are going to get the money together - or even find enough to make a big payment so maybe the bank will maybe give us a little more time. Don't you understand; I have cost you your ranch - your life!" she was getting more and more concerned.  
 _  
_"I told you before; you and the girls are my life. True, I would not be happy any place but here on Heartland, and so we will figure this out. Now, come on; we have some cattle to check on and then we need to get back to the house and map out a plan of attack," Jack replied as he rode up bedside Marion he leaned over and gave her a big hug. Marion melted into Jacks arms and lay her head on his shoulder. She appreciated the gesture as she had carried the weight of her decisions alone for years now. Telling Jack and seeing him accept her despite her mistakes made her feel a little easier about everything for the moment anyway.

Jack then turned his horse and started off to check on the cows with Marion following silently behind.

"Come on, slow poke! The sooner we get to the upper pasture, the sooner we get home," he said.

After they had finished the check, the pair headed back to the house and Jack asked Marion if she had come up with any ideas about where to start. She looked at him and realized he had used the trip to the field to think about their situation, while all she had done was wallow in self pity, so she just shook her head. She also was coming to the realization that even with all his wisdom, Jack was also without a plan for the situation they were facing and now she was really afraid.

As they topped the hill looking down on Heartland, they saw Amy and Ty headed out to check the fence.

"I wonder how she got him on a horse… Figured they would take the truck and come at it from the other side of the ranch," Jack said as he watched them ride towards the woods. As they disappeared into the trees, Jack turned to his daughter.

"What made you want to bring that boy to Heartland? I know you have a thing for trying to fix horses that are broken, but this is a human being and I am not sure that it will work the same with him."

"I don't know, Dad. I am not sure why I even went to the home in the first place. Maybe it was to watch the kids who really have problems, so I could feel better about my current situation…" Marion said.

"And just what is your current situation? Is there something else you want to tell me about?" inquired a now very curious Jack.

"Amy is a good girl but she is also a teen, and sometimes I find myself clinging so hard to her because I did not want to lose her like I had Lou. I was afraid of it and last night she confirmed it; I was driving her away instead of growing closer to her. I have never gotten over Lou leaving and I needed to know that I was not the only Mom who had children with problems. So I went where the kids had real problems, where their parents - well, at least I told myself that - were the cause, they had failed so bad that these kids had ended up behind bars. Dad, some of them were even younger than Amy…

I remembered how we had helped Scott and so I started the paperwork to help someone again. I had planned on it being a girl this time, someone who maybe Amy could bond with. The paperwork was approved and I went to the center to pick the child I wanted, but none of the girls had really peaked my interest. But I was determined so I was going to pick on and have them finish the paperwork for her. Then I was going to tell you and Amy and we would have all come to pick her up.

When I had gone other times to watch the kids, I saw Ty and observed him in situations where he was justified by the rules of the center to not have gotten involved in scuffles. Instead he chose each time - knowing that he would probably get in trouble - to stand up for those not strong enough to stand up for themselves. I was there the last time he got in trouble and watched it all, and when I heard them threatening to send him to prison, I made the decision to bring him to Heartland instead of a girl like I had planned. Because it happened rather quickly, I did not have time to tell you. I wish you could have met him under different circumstances, Dad, I really do, but I feel he is a good kid."

"I don't want to tell him yet, but I think he might be a pretty good kid as well. You know Amy has already taken a liking to him, are you okay with that?" Jack asked matter of factly.

"What are you talking about? There is no way she could be interested in him so soon, is there?" replied Marion a concerned look on her face. This was not something she had even thought about - well, she had, and that was the reason Ty was supposed to have been a girl.

"You were a bit blindsided by the whole Jesse deal as well, weren't you?" Jack pointed out. "Okay, so you are not the most observant Mom, but you have always been good with people and are usually a pretty good judge of character. Well, that is except for the man you married…"

"Dad, I don't need to go there with you right now," said an exasperated Marion. She was still trying to come to grips with Amy seeing anyone in a romantic way, let alone two of them.

"I am sorry, honey. I guess I am starting to get angry at him all over again. At least you could have gotten child support from him. Maybe we can find him and get all that back pay he owes you and it will help us now…"

Marion's mind was brought back to the present with the words her father had said and she began to be upset with him for continuing his talk about her ex-husband.

"No, Dad. When you kicked him out and I allowed that to happen, I told you that we had to cut out all contact with him. That meant that we would not seek child support, and so I have no idea where he is nowadays, and even if I did, I would not approach him for child support for children he has not seen in ten years."

"That was his own fault - he should have never have hit you! He is lucky that I only kicked him out and did not beat him within an inch of his life thought I really I wanted to. But I decided against if mostly because you were standing there and you had already suffered enough from violence in your life. I made a vow right then and there I would protect you from Tim in every way I could but I would never use violence to do it. "

"I will never get over how beautiful this place is," said Marion, her arm over the view in front of them, as she tried to change the subject. "Right now that is all we should be thinking of and I have to tell Amy about this as well. I don't want Ty to spill it, she would never forgive me."

"What could Ty possibly tell her?" Jack asked. "He does not even know about Lou or this problem… does he?"

Jack could tell by the look on his daughters face that Ty might have known before he had.

"You let that kind of information out to a con?! What were you thinking, Marion?! Or should I say you were not thinking. Just how much does he know?"

"First of all, he is not a con, he is a young man who has made a few mistakes, just like the old one sitting there all smug on his horse. So, to answer your question; all of it. I did not mean for him to hear it, but he was in the truck and overheard the banker talking to me. Then I was overcome with it all and I just started talking. In a way it would affect him as well as he would probably have to leave if the bank took the ranch away from us - or even part of it. I could tell by the look on his face that he was wondering how all that could have happened, and the next thing I knew I was telling him how it all came to be. So he knows it all; the debt problems, why Lou left - at least from what we suspect was the cause, anyway. Yes, I know I should not have told him any of it, but it just came out and he was a good listener. He never asked a question. Now I see how wrong that was, and I don't want Amy to find out any of it from him."

"I see you now feel after all this time you are finally going to share everything with Amy about Tim as well?" Jack asked.

"I am not sure, but I think now that Ty knows it would be better that I did. I don't think from what I have seen of Ty that he would tell her, but Amy is very perceptive and if he hints about anything, she will do her best to pry it out of him - and we both know how persistent she can be," Marion replied.

"We better get back to the house. We need to talk over what and how we are going to tell Amy. I pray that your perception of Ty is correct and Amy does not know anything when she gets back, or there will be hell to pay and we may lose the second daughter," Jack shared his thoughts on what was yet to come.

The thought of losing Amy as they had lost Lou had always terrified Marion, and now she had put herself in a place where she had to tell her - even though as Jack had said it might cost her her other daughter.

…..

"Wow! That is a beautiful purse," Lou was complimented by her friend, Nicole, as they sat down on the table by the busy street. Mackenzie, who had just walked up with the fourth member of their group, Lauren, nodded her head in agreement as she admired the beautiful brown handbag that had the new smell and impeccable feel that only the good designer purses had.

"It should be! I mean, it cost Carl $500.00 dollars after all." Lou told them as they sat down to have lunch near their New York office.

"Woah! Wish my boyfriend would give me something that nice…" said Lauren who couldn't get her eyes off of the new accessory.

"He wanted to celebrate my promotion and this purse was his present to me," replied Lou, smiling as she couldn't have been happier with the way her boyfriend was pampering her.

"Ooh, and what did he get in return?" chided Mackenzie, giggling.

Come on, Mackenzie… What we do in private is private…Lou said with a smile that told them all they wanted to know. They all then had a good laugh at Lou's expense.

"So what do you and Carl have planned for the weekend?" asked Nicole, setting aside her green smoothie after taking a sip.

"I don't really know for sure. I think I heard Carl tell someone he wanted to go away somewhere, but I want to go the theater. But I know whatever we decide we will have fun," Lou added so that she wouldn't sound too demanding in front of her girlfriends.

"You two are getting pretty close lately. Seems that we never see one of you without the other. And you hardly ever go out with just us girls like you used to," said Nicole, pouting playfully. "We're beginning to miss you, Fleming."

"Yes, I know," she said apologetically, but then quickly changed her tone as she had exciting news to tell her friends. "We have been doing a lot of talking as well, and I am hoping that he will pop the question soon! He was talking about getting a place together. Now that I have my promotion we could afford a really nice place together."

"Maybe that is why he wants to get away this weekend! Maybe he has a romantic getaway planned," exclaimed Lauren. The other girls joined her excitement by making high pitched noises.

"You could be right", said Lou, lowering her voice, "he has not told me yet where he wants to go and he always asks me before he makes any plans like going out of town. The more we talk about it, the more I think maybe I will come back next week with something else new to show you!" She brought her left hand next to her head and jiggled her ring finger enthusiastically, hinting the possible engagement

"Speak of the devil! Here he comes", said Mackenzie as the man just happened to walk past, also on his way to lunch., "Hey, Carl!" she she waved and tried to get Lou's boyfriend's attention.

The man stopped when he heard his name and noticed four familiar faces behind the fence of the restaurant.

"Hello, ladies. Spreading the daily gossip, are we?" he guessed playfully as they barely had time to do that at work but when these four were together they were always up to no good, in a good way.

"Yep, and you were the gossip. We were talking about you!" Nicole teased, knowing the guy would probably be curious as to what had been talked about.

"Well, from the look on Lou's face I was not alone in your gossip," he guessed and this caused Lou to now turn bright red as she didn't want to think she was oversharing with their co-workers. After all, she was supposed to be a professional.

"Besides why wouldn't you talk about _us_ I just shared with the boys at lunch as well" Carl knew from the look and color of Lou's face he had struck a nerve and just wanted to mess with her a little bit more. "Guess we are going to be talk around the water cooler today" he said as i wave and continued on.

…..

As Ty stood up, he held out the reins as Amy just smiled and took them from him.

"I think the stirrups should be close enough to the right length for you to go ahead and ride Copper without changing the saddles," said Amy.

"Good," said Ty. "I am not sure I want to go through changing saddles at the moment. My pride has already taken enough of a beating today."

"Well, we will take it a bit more easy, and this old scooter here," she said patting Copper on the neck, "still has plenty of get up and go if that is what you want to do. But I would advise against it, at least for a while, anyway."

"I think I might listen to you this time," replied Ty as he brushed the grass on his clothes that he had pulled up on his little dismount. "We had better get going. Your mom and Grandfather are going to be back before we even get out of the yard."

Once they were both in the saddle, Ty looked at Amy and said "lead on". He fell in behind Amy as she headed out.

"How far do we have to go?" Ty asked as he began to see just how crazy his stunt had been. Maybe the fall had knocked a little sense into him as it started him to think, he had no idea of how far it was to where they were going - and maybe even more importantly _where it was_ they were they going or how to get there.

"Just a mile or so I guess" was Amy's reply.

As they reached the tree line, Ty was beginning to feel a bit more comfortable in the saddle and with his horse, so he encouraged Copper to catch up with Amy and Pegasus. As he pulled up alongside, he began to speak about what he had been thinking since the ride home with Marion.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question about your sister?" Ty felt from what he had heard from Marion that they would need all the support they could get in this situation. He knew by the way Marion had spoken of Lou how much she missed her and her being away only added to the hurt she was already feeling about the loan and possibly loosing their home. She had mentioned that Amy was still in some sort of contact with her so that might be the only way Lou would know and hopefully would at least talk to her mom and… well he did not really know what he expected but he did not want to see this family hurting anymore.

"How do you know about my sister?" said a now curious Amy. Hearing her sisters name mention was something she was not used too. Ever since Lou had left for college their had been very little talk about her. When she took the job in New York it was as if she no longer existed to her Mom and Jack. Now a complete stranger was asking about her… Why?

"Your mom talked about her on the way home from town," was Ty's reply. He now wished he had kept his curiosity to himself, but since the cat was out of the bag, and he was seeing that he would have to proceed with caution.

"What did she say about her?" Amy asked in a very demanding voice.

Ty knew now that he had been right and wished he had never opened this conversation. Picking his words very carefully he began:

"She just mentioned that your sister had gone away to school and that she now lived in New York." He hoped that would satisfy Amy, but had a feeling that it would not.

"Why would she be talking to you about my sister? They don't even talk anymore… I am not sure when the last time she and Lou even spoke, or for that matter, communicated in any form."

"I overheard a conversation with someone in town and I asked her a few questions on the way home," he continued, again trying to give her just enough information to satisfy her and not break Marion's trust.

But Amy's interest was now peaked. She wondered what Ty had asked, and even more, what her Mom had said. She had tried to talk with her mom about Lou on several occasions, about why Lou had left and why she never came back or why they did not talk with her, and every time she had changed the subject.

Now she was talking to someone who had only been at Heartland for not even a full days about what she had wanted to know for years.

"Did she tell you why Lou left and stayed in New York? Or why she does not communicate with her daughter or her daughter with her or Jack for that matter?" Amy began to spit questions out.

Ty found he had to choose his words even more carefully.

"Your mom said that Lou had gone to New York to get her degree and then found a good job and stayed there," Ty stopped again, hoping Amy would stop this line of questioning.

But when he saw her getting ready to ask another one, he decided to change the flow of conversation by beating her to the punch and asking her a question.

"That is what I was going to ask you; why did your sister stayed away in New York and why they don't communicate anymore."

This time the tactic seemed to work, as Amy began to talk.

"I have my ideas, but no one will tell me for sure if that is the reason. But even if I knew, I am not sure I know you well enough to go talking about my family problems. I find it very disturbing that my Mom would talk to you about something that she won't even talk to me about. On top of that, I feel that there is more to this line of questioning than meets the eye and Mom has told you more than you are telling me."

"I told you earlier that I could not talk about some things and that is one of them, but I would like to ask you one more question."

"I reserve the right to give you the same answer you just gave me," snapped Amy"

"Fair enough. I just wanted to know how good your communications are with your sister and would she listen to you if you had information to give to her?" Ty asked.

"We actually talked this last Christmas on the phone the first time in a long while; I had not heard her voice in a couple of years. We had a nice talk and she just sent me this phone."

Amy pulled a cell phone out of her pocket with a note to call her anytime if I ever had questions or needed anything.

"I am not sure why I just told you that, and you had better not tell Mom or Grandpa I have this phone!" she insisted.

"I will not tell anyone, I promise. I would like you to do me a favor and talk with your Mom and ask her the questions that you just asked me. I hope that she will talk with you, and when she does, I would like you to promise me you will listen to all she has to say before you start to make any type of judgment. If you do, I know you will know why I asked if you were in communications with your sister."

"Okay, I will do that. But now we need to get across this stream ahead and fix that fence just on the other side,then head home as I want to talk with mom."

When they got to the fence, the wires were not broken and Amy told Ty all they had to do was staple the wires back to the post and they would be on their way home.

After a while, Ty had just put in the last staple when he heard something that made him turn to Amy. He listened carefully to make sure he had heard right.

"Was that a car I just heard..?"

Amy turned her head a little and said: "you heard a car?"

" Yeah. I thought you said we could not drive up here."

"We couldn't. There is a fence over there behind those trees. You would have had to walk from the road," she said, gesturing toward the line of aspen.

"Let's see. That is at most 50 yards or so to the trees…" Ty calculated. "How far beyond that is the road and fence?" he wanted to know.

"A ways," was Amy's reply.

"Define "a ways"."

"About 20 more yards," said Amy sheepishly.

"I went through falling off a horse not once, but twice, was humiliated out of my mind when we could have just driven here and only walked about 70 yards or so," said Ty in a very quizzical voice.

"Yep, I like to ride horses," was Amy's defense. "I think it is time we headed back to the house."

She quickly mounted Pegasus partly to move away before Ty could get hold of her.

"Remember how to get back to the barn?" Amy asked.

"Yes I do," said Ty as he put the hammer in the saddle bag and started to mount Copper.

"Good. I will see you when you get there," Amy said as she kicked Pegasus into high gear, hoping that she would give Ty time enough to think about it before he saw her again and the fire in his eyes would have subsided a bit.

Besides she wanted to talk to her mom before he got there.


	12. Chapter 12

What If (Part 12)

 _This story starts before season one of Heartland. It was written to answer a question asked by some on Heartlandian's Tumblr site about "what if" Marion had never died. This is one person's view of what might have been different and what might not have changed at all._

* * *

As Pegasus leaped away at a full gallop, andCopper shied away from Ty, pulling his hand off the horn he had just reached up to grab. Ty was concerned that Copper would follow Amy and Pegasus, so he talked gently to the horse as he followed his stable mate with his eyes. Ty did his best to get the horse's attention so he would not bolt as well.

"Easy there, Copper", Ty whispered, not sure why, but instinctively knowing that shouting would not have the desire affect. Copper jerked up his head and stepped back and as he did, the reins that had been around the horn on the saddle fell to the ground.

Ty was surprised by the horse's reaction

As the reins hit the ground almost immediately Copper stopped when he felt the slight tug of them dragging _._ Ty would later find out that it was called ground hitching, something Amy and her mom had worked on with Copper as he was often used for inexperienced riders and the last thing they needed was for them to fall off and Copper to continue on leaving them to walk home. Ty continued talking as he walked up to the horse, slowly reaching out and taking hold of the dangling rein. He then walked up to Copper and gave him a pat on the neck, showing his approval for the fact that the horse had not left him there.

Amy was across the stream and looked back to make sure Ty and Copper were alright. She saw Ty standing there, arm out stretched to Copper and him backing away, but as soon as she saw the reins fall off the horn she turned her gaze back to the trail leading home knowing that Ty and Copper would be okay.

Amy's mind was now racing about as fast as Pegasus was running. She was thinking about all that she and Ty had talked about. First there had been the look on Ty's face when her mom and he had gotten home and she and grandpa had ridden off. Ty had not told her anything but not saying anything had told her a lot.

Then there had been the question about Lou, and again he had done a masterful job of avoiding telling her what she wanted to know. She had been angry with him, yet at the same time felt relieved that he could at least keep a secret.

Now she was forming the questions she would ask her mom as soon as she saw her. Just before heading into the woods, she took one more look to her rear and saw that Ty was now standing beside Copper. Witnessing that made her more comfortable to continue her ride home.

…

Marion and Jack rode up to the barn and then began to unsaddle the horses. Jack took the saddles to the rack and placed them and their respective blanket/pads on the saddle rack before hanging up the bridles in their respective places. Meanwhile Marion was beginning to rub the horses down.

"What am I going to say?" Marion asked Jack. As she continued to brush out the horses coat. Then leaning forward putting her arms on the horses back and looking at Jack said. "We have hid so much from her for so long that I don't know where to start and I am now seeing that it may have not been the best idea."

Marion's thoughts were running wild at the moment and she worried about having to tell Amy about everything she had tried to protect her from. Telling a teen anything was risky enough with the emotional state they were usually in. That was only magnified by it coming from a parent they had just had a fight making it even harder if that was possible, it seemed, to most parents, that most teens did not really trust them anyway.

Marion thought back on the past few years and she could see how she had not done a good job of building the relationship that needed to have been built with her daughter. At first she had been distracted with Lou's leaving and then with trying to control everything about Amy's life, as if that would prevent her from following in her sister's footsteps instead of just showing her how much she was loved.

Now, would that come back to haunt her?

"She is a smart girl and I think she will do fine" Jack replied. "She might be a bit on the angry side for a while, but I know she will be okay eventually. Then we can all just learn to be the family we should have been all along and the secrets that have haunted us will now be in the open and we can deal with them. The best thing is we will no longer have to protect Tim!" Jack said, evidently thrilled at the thought. "After all, this entire mess is his fault, Marion. If he had not hit you, we would still have our family together and you would not be facing this situation."

"Dad, I understand what you are saying, but I did not and I still don't want to ruin the girl's relationship with their father…" Marion explained calmly.

"What relationship? When was the last time he called Amy or remembered her birthday or tried any form of communication with her? He was not a fit father when he was here and that only got worse when he left!" Jack almost shouted at Marion.

"First of all, he did not just leave - he was told to get out." Marion reminded her father. "So don't go there, Dad. I understand and I agree it was what had to happen, but I still loved him and if he had not been in the accident, I believe the worst thing we would have had between you and him would have been the never ending battle of who was the best rodeo cowboy. I know Tim could be obnoxious and he was a royal pain in the ass for you, but he was also a very loving and caring person at times as well - especially to me," Marion replied to her father in exasperation.

'We will just have to agree to disagree on this at the moment, as we have far more import things to worry about", said Jack as he finished brushing out Paint and put him away in the stall. Before leaving him be, Jack gave him some fresh hay and checked on his water. As he did, he glanced out the barn door and saw Amy come out of the tree line at a full gallop. It made him wonder why she was coming so fast.

He waited for Ty to emerge as well, but when he did not see Copper nor Ty, he yelled at Marion:

"Here comes Amy! She is in a heck of a hurry and I don't see Ty with her!"

They both ran out of the barn to meet Amy.

Amy slowed to an easy gallop as she neared the barn and pulled up Pegasus, swinging down from the saddle. All three of them began to speak at the same time, and finally, Jack's voice rose above the girls as he shouted:

"Let Amy talk!"

Both adults expected to hear Amy tell them what had happened to Ty, but instead Amy zeroed in on her mom and shouted:

"What are you hiding from me, and why does Ty seem to know more about it than your own daughter?! Why do you always treat me like a mushroom and keep me in the dark? I want some answers - and I want them NOW!"

Both the tone of Amy's voice and the subject matter took them by surprise. They had been worried about Ty, and here she had come right out, wanting to know what they had been worried about all along. Still, Jack had to interject.

"Is Ty okay? Why is he not with you?"

"So, he is more important to you than your own granddaughter?" Amy asked, seemingly insulted. "Why do you even keep me around? I am sorry that I was not born a boy! That way you wouldn't have to deal with another emotional girl… But much to your disappointment I am a girl and I am your daughter and granddaughter and I demand that you forget about anyone other than me at this moment or I am leaving!" she continued. Then deciding to address what they seemed to want to know, no matter how bad it made her feel. "Just so you can get your minds back to me - yes, he is okay, he is just slow that's all!"

She hoped that was a true statement, but at the moment she could have cared less if Ty had been bucked off and was walking home - or even hurt - as she was angry and needed answers.

Marion looked at her daughter, and she was getting angry at Ty for telling Amy anything. She had thought he would have been worth the trust that she had shown him when she opened up at talked to him on the way home. That was her mistake and it would not happen again.

"Just what did Ty tell you?" she demanded to know.

"That's it, isn't it? You are worried that someone has spilled your precious little secrets. Secrets you felt fine about sharing with a complete stranger but did not feel that your daughter needed to know. He did not tell me anything if you really need to know - though I tried hard enough to get him to talk. He asked a couple of questions that got me to thinking and now I want some answers!

First of all, I want to know what secrets you had to share with Grandpa that you shared with Ty on the way home. Then, I want to know why you would talk with him about Lou when you never talk about her with me!" Amy exclaimed, laying the most pressing issues as she saw them on the table.

Marion's biggest fear now was staring her in the face and knowing that there was no wiggle room in what she had to say. One misstep now and she would lose Amy, just as she had lost Lou.

"I am sorry, Amy…" began Marion. Turning to Jack, she asked, "Dad, will you cool Pegasus down? I think it's time Amy and I had the talk she is asking for. We will be on the porch."

"Sure", replied Jack. He could see how this was not a time for him to be anywhere near the two of them. Even though he felt that he might need to defend his daughter, now was not the time to do it. He walked over and took the reins from Amy's hand and as he started to walk away, he looked at her.

"You asked the questions. Now it's time to act like an adult and listen to the whole answer and not interrupt her", was the advice he whispered in her ear, then walking toward the barn with Pegasus. He had wanted to ask if she was sure about Ty, but knew now was not the time to ask that question either, so he would wait a few more minutes and let the girls have their talk before he went out to look for him.

…

Copper had settled down, and Ty placed his foot in the stirrup and swung up on his back, though not nearly as gracefully as Amy had done on Pegasus. It seemed that it had all be in one fluid motion and she was seated and off at a full gallop before he could even process what she had done. He was quite angry at that moment she had lied to him, let him make a fool of himself, and then left him behind to find his own way home. Ty gathered the reins as he had been shown by Amy and turned Copper toward the creek. He had noticed on the way here that they had followed a trail, so he was not that worried that he could not find his way back, but he was concerned that while he had been angry with her, Amy had taken flight to get away from him and it was something much larger that had had her head home so quickly.

He was just getting used to this riding thing and after this morning, he was in no hurry, so he gave Copper his head and set back, letting the horse set the pace. He also figured while he knew the way home, Copper probably knew it even better.

Soon he had crossed the creek and was now headed into the woods. He was surprised how much he had missed on the ride to the fence. Looking around, he noticed vegetation and the overall lay of the land. Much of it he had not noticed on the ride here. He noticed the rock formations and could even see where Amy and Pegasus had gone before them as the horse's hooves had cut deep into soil, as he pushed off to keep up his speed. Ty had always enjoyed riding his bike off road, but had to now admit he could see why Amy said she liked to ride. He was surprised by the wild life he saw.

As Copper carried on, Ty figured it must have been the sound of the bike or even his walking around after he stopped that had kept him from seeing them. Maybe there was something about the sound of a horse walking that was just part of the sounds of nature. And since he was quiet and not talking as he had been with Amy on the way up here, he heard and saw so much more than he ever had before. He soon cleared the woods and could see the ranch house and barn ahead of him. He would be home in no time; home, had he actually thought that, well after what he had heard this morning he was not so sure it would be for long.

…..

Marion held out her arm, gesturing toward the porch, and Amy just looked at her with angry eyes and walked to the house. Marion knew she had only about 60 seconds to come up with what she was going to say and that she would have to tell Amy everything - even if it meant that she might not believe her. The hardest part, she had figured, would have been telling her about the debt, but now she knew it would be telling her about her father.

She only needed to figure out where to start.

...to be continued...


	13. Chapter 13

What If Chapter 13

Amy climbed the steps and walked over to the bench in front of the kitchen window. As she started to take a seat, she thought about all the talks that had been had on that bench. But of all the things that had been said, she knew that what her mom was about to say was going to top them all.

But what if it didn't and she found out that Marion had shared things with Ty that she would not share with her for no good reason.

"I guess you better start talking, Mom, or I am going to start walking. I wonder why you have shut me out for so long about Lou, and what was so hush hush that you felt you could not share it with me but could share it with Ty who you barely even know?" Amy said in a very sarcastic tone of voice.

Marion under any other circumstances would have come down on her daughter for speaking that way to her - or anyone for that matter - but she knew that Amy had reason to feel this way, and so she would let it slide this one time.

"I am not sure where to start or what to say…" replied Marion as she looked at Amy.

"You could try starting with the truth of why you felt you had to have secrets from me!" Amy demanded bitterly.

"Yes, that would have taken care of a lot of the problems we are facing right now," Marion admitted, as she sat down beside Amy. "First of all, I guess I need to explain why Ty knows anything that you don't."

"This should be interesting…" exclaimed Amy. Her anger had not subsided as she thought it would but instead,if anything it had gotten stronger. She had been upset that Ty would not talk, but now realizing that he was more informed about anything than she was, was beyond comprehension.

"I did not set out to tell him anything. While we were in town, he overheard a conversation that I wish he had not. On the way home, he asked me about that conversation, and since it very well may affect him, I shared with him how and why that conversation came up," Marion spoke, trying to collect her scattered thoughts.

"Talking in circles here, Mom… That does not tell me anything I haven't heard already. Behind it is just another secret you're keeping from me," said an even more exasperated Amy. She wanted to get to the point already and not have this kind of political conversation where Marion was supposed to be telling her something, that she had said was important, while not actually revealing anything at all.

"You asked why I told Ty and that is why," Marion pointed out, letting Amy know she had not missed the point. "I was trying to tell you the whole story not just the highlights of it. Every story has a beginning and an end so please let me finish before you interrupt again. "Now, what he heard and what I told him, I am going to tell you as well. Amy, Dad and I have hidden things from you for what we felt wasyour protection and to also protect your view of your father."

"What does he have to do with anything? I have not heard from him in years and I barely remember him at all," Amy replied, wondering if her mother was just trying to confuse her even more. What did her father have to do with Marion telling Ty about Lou. The more her mom talked the more she found it hard to believe anything she was saying. Usually Amy liked the detail but today she wanted to get to the meat of the story and if felt like she was never going to tell her anything she wanted to know. "Mom can you skip all the side stories and get to the point. I don't know what Dad has to do with anything I want to know"

"He has everything to do with what I am about to tell you," Marion explained, trying to contain Amy's hastiness. The more Amy argued with her way of telling the story, the longer it would take for her to get to the bottom of it all. "You and your sister were never told why your Dad left."

"Lou said it was because Jack did not like him after he had his accident and instead of helping him, he chased him away," replied Amy, trying to show she knew more than what her Mom thought she knew.

"That is partially true," replied Marion. "Dad did tell him to leave, but you have to understand why, and it was not for the reason that Lou told you." Marion's mind was now in hyper drive there were so many thoughts flying around and she was afraid if she opened her mouth and said the wrong thing, or said the right thing in the wrong way that it would make Amy even more disgusted with her and Jack. And could possibly destroy the very thing she had fought so hard to protect Amy's image of her dad. This could have a far reaching effect on Amy and she was afraid to say anything more but knew she had to.

"So, you are going to tell me Lou lied to me as well?" Amy didn't know why Marion was dragging Lou down with her or if what she saying was actually true. If it was in fact true, Amy's list of people she could truly depend on was getting shorter and shorter. "I think I will believe her on this one. She has never lied to me before, so why would she lie about something she knew would be this important to me?" Amy said, grasping at straws to hold on to the trust she had in her sister.

"It's partly true. Lou told you what we allowed her to believe, so she did not exactly lie to you. But…" Marion took a deep breath, bracing for what she was about to say and what she feared might be the reaction by Amy. "We never told her the true reason why Dad asked your father to leave. Lou was right in that your Dad was hurt, but during his recovery - which did not happen as quickly has he had hoped and looked as if he would never be able to do - the only thing he felt he knew how to do, rodeo. So **,** he started taking more pain killers and supplementing that with drinking. Your father was not a very nice drunk to start with and when he added pills to the booze, he became violent. Your grandfather heard me yelling at Tim, pleading him to stop when he walked by our bedroom. When he pushed the door open, he walked in on Tim… hitting me," Marion hesitated at first but decided to follow through with her description of the events because she had promised to tell Amy everything, no matter how ugly the truth turned out to be. "I have always been grateful to Dad for two things that night; first of all, for stopping the beatings, and secondly, for not killing your father by beating him to death as I thought he was going to do."

Amy looked at her mom, not wanting to believe what she had just heard. She really had no relationship with her Dad, and even from her earliest memories she could not recall spending much time with him. But Lou always mentioned their Dad when she wrote or talked with her. She had kept her filled in on what was going on with him. Even though she had not heard from him in years, Amy felt like she knew who he was through Lou. She also knew that her sister loved and adored their father and blamed everything on her mom and grandfather.

Now she was being lead to believe that everything she knew about her Dad's leaving was a lie or at least only a partial truth.

"Why are you doing this, Mom? Why are you trying to tear Dad down?" Amy said, denying everything she had just told her.

"Because you asked why I had talked with Ty, and what we talked about and that's what I am telling you," a very frustrated and now visibly distraught Marion explained. She had never wanted to be where she was now and if she had just kept Jack informed and asked him before she had borrowed the money and signed both their names to the paperwork this conversation would never have had to happen. They could have lived out their lives as they had till now. Instead she said "You asked for the truth and now you have it. Amy, the truth doesn't always make things better sometimes as you are seeing it can turn your world upside down. So whether you like it or not, it just is what it is."

"Oh, so you told that criminal Ty, that my Dad is a wife beater?" Why had she had drug Ty into this she did not know but maybe she was blaming him for pushing her to be her with her mom. If he had just answered her questions she would have been just as angry but she would not have been her she would have never come home.

When Marion heard it from her daughter, she realized that she had overshared with Ty. But it was out there now and no matter what she said, she had been wrong.

"You are right. I had no business sharing that, but I did, so I will continue with why I did," Marion said to Amy. "We– well, actually I, forced Grandpa to allow you two girls to think that it had been us who chased him away. I did not want you to have a bad image of your Dad. Truth be told, I did not want to remember him that way either, as I knew it had been the pills and booze that caused our problems. But we had tried and tried to get him off them and he refused the help. Instead of seeing that we were just trying to help, he thought we were just trying to make his life harder **.** I am lucky that he never hit you or your sister because I would probably not have had as much self-control as Dad did."

Marion closed her eyes and she could still see the look on Tim's face that night as he stood on the porch, almost right where they were now. How she wished she could go back and see if maybe there had been something else she could have done to have saved their marriage.

"If Dad was really hitting you," Amy said in a questioning voice, "why did you feel you had to hide it from us?"

Marion knew she had to come clean, and when she thought about what she was about to say, she knew it would not be received well.

Thinking back on the past 10 years, she knew that she had been wrong to hide all of this from her daughters, and now it sounded like she was making up an excuse instead of telling the truth.

"I decided to do it mostly because of your sister. Lou loved your father and I would almost say she worshiped the ground he walked on. She was at the rodeo when he got hurt, and even when he was at his worst, he never let his temper get out of control with her. She cared for him when he lay around the house, drunk and on pills, refusing to do anything, and she had already started saying we did not understand how much he hurt when we tried to get him up and out of the house. I could not ruin that love she had for her Dad. And even though you were never close to Tim like your sister was, I did not feel I wanted you to think ill of your father either."

"So you are telling me that you let us both believe a lie and take it out on you two, even blaming you for chasing Dad away, when it was actually his fault he had to leave? Do you realize how stupid and hard to believe that sounds mom?" asked Amy with a dumbfounded look on her face.

"Yes, I do, and you are right; that does not make very much sense, and when you put it like you just did, it sounds even worse. But all I can tell you is that it's true, everything I have told you so far is - but there is more. You wanted to know what I had told Ty or what he had overheard. The bank manager saw me loading up the stuff from Maggie's and told me we had until Friday to come up with a very large amount of money or they were going to start the paperwork to foreclose on Heartland."

"Foreclose?! What money are you talking about?!" Amy asked, shocked that this whole thing had taken another unexpected turn. "I know we are poor as church mice, how you pinch every penny and I am told to look through Lou's old clothes when I say I need something new to wear, but I never thought it was that bad. I mean **,** where has all this money gone?"

"It went to pay for you sister's education in the US. When your Dad left, Lou and I drifted apart - well, actually we hardly even talked anymore. She never got over me kicking Tim out as she saw it. When she went to school, it cost a lot of money, and I took out loans to pay for a place to live and the **tuition** I thought I could buy her love… As you can see that did not work out so well."

"So, it was Dad's fault he had to leave and Lou's fault that we could lose Heartland? Is there anyone else you can find to blame something on?" Amy asked angrily wondering if her mother had no shame **.** "What have I done? I am sure you could make up some story if you tried hard enough! This still does not tell me why you told Ty about Lou and Dad. It was none of his business!"

Marion was also now visibly getting angered - some of it about herself and some of it from the attitude that Amy had taken. This had been hard enough to tell her, and she had figured there would be some rough spots, but Amy had not only gotten more defiant - if that were possible - but her assessment of the way she and Jack had handled this whole affair had her on the defensive as well.

"I told you, I was wrong to have said anything to Ty, and seeing how this would not be happening had I not told him…" Marion explained one more time with a firm tone.

"Oh, no you don't!" said Amy, shaking her finger at Marion. "You sure did not waste any time trying to find that one more person to blame, did you? For your information - again mom if you would ever listen to me - Ty did not tell me anything! He only asked questions, and now I at least know why. We are done here. I am calling Lou right now," said Amy as she turned and walked away pulling the phone out of her pocket.

"Where did you get that?" Marion asked, getting up **.**

Amy did not even reply as she had already dialed Lou's number.

Turning around, she faced Marion just so she could see the expression on her face as she realized Amy had actually called Lou and she was going to pick up and she would hear all about what Marion had just told her.

"Lou gave it to me," Amy explained, hearing the dial tone in her other ear. When Marion looked surprised, Amy was quick to twist the knife in her back. "See, you are not the only one with secrets. Hope it hurt you like yours did me."

Then **,** Amy heard Lou's voice on the phone. And they both heard Marion say, "No Amy I don't want her to find out this way."

"Maybe you should have thought of that a long time ago MOM" said a very defiant Amy.

…

Lou had just finished getting dressed and she was admiring her outfit from the mirror, turning around to see it from every angle. She and Carl were headed out to the theater and then after the show they were going to go away for the weekend. Lou had such high hopes for the weekend, and as she had shared with her girlfriends, hopefully she would come back wearing an engagement ring.

As she was doing final touches on her lip gloss, she heard her phone ring and without looking picked it up and said:

"You can pick me up at 8. That should give us plenty of time to finish packing for the trip before we have to leave for the theater."

The voice on the other end of the phone said:

"Lou…? What are you talking about? This is Amy!"

"Oh, Amy!" Lou said, pressing her phone against her ear and shoulder as she tossed the lip gloss to her purse. "I'm sorry, I thought you were Carl. Was that Mom I heard in the background? What does she not want me to find out?"

"Who's Carl?" Amy asked. Completely ignoring Lou's question.

This cause her to stop thinking of her question and think about the one Amy had just asked. Then it hit Lou **.** She was hoping to get engaged this weekend and yet she had not even told any of her family about Carl- not that she even considered anyone else but Amy her family anymore **.**

Had her life really come to that point where she did not share any of her life here with anyone outside of her closest friends at work?

"Well, he is my boyfriend," was Lou's reply, deciding maybe it was time to tell Amy about him before he would turn into her fiancé.

"Do you have time to talk?" Amy asked, not really even caring who Lou was dating and what was doing on in her life. She had more important stuff to talk about.

"Always for you, Amy," Lou said, picking up her phone to properly place it on her ear. "What's the matter? You sound like it is kind of urgent and it must be if you are using the phone in front of mom."

"I need to know what you know about Dad's leaving Mom. What the reason was and why we have never heard from him since?"

This line of questioning was not one that Lou comfortable with, and the fact that it had came out of the blue made it even more unbearable. She was supposed to be getting ready for a romantic date, but instead she was reliving one of the most painful memories of her life.

She had been a teen when all that had happened 10 years ago and she had formed her opinion of what had happened, but she had now moved on with her life. She had had contact with Tim over the years, but not a lot and not for a while. When they talked, they never talked about the past because Lou sensed it was something Tim not feel comfortable talking about either **.** Still, she knew or at least thought she knew, the reason - as no one had ever disputed it - not her mom, Jack or even her Dad.

"Okay…" Lou said, sighing. "Just what do you want to know?"

... to be continued ...


	14. Chapter 14

What If part 15

Amy saw the fear in her Mother's eyes and smiled, oh, so deviously at her. She could see that this was tearing herMother apart but Amy didn't care. In fact, she could not wait to make her feel the mental pain that she had felt when she had learned of her talk with Ty and then what she had shared about her dad.

"I need to know exactly what happened between Mom and Dad, and why he left Heartland. And why don't you talk with Mom and Grandpa anymore", Amy explained to Lou who was now listening on the other end of the line **.** "

"No" said Marion" shaking her head "don't do this please." All she could think of was Lou on the other end. She had protected her from all of this for so long and she did not want her to find out in this way. Yes she needed to be told but not by an angry Amy.

Before Lou could reply, there was a knock on her door. The door opened and in walked her boyfriend Carl.

"You ready? Where is the stuff you have for the weekend?" he asked, already feeling the excitement of the upcoming weekend. He had just stepped into Lou's bedroom and stopped, for the look on her face told him there was something far more important taking up her time at the moment.

Oh no… Lou thought to herself. This was the last thing she needed. She knew that she had to talk to Amy and yet she was not ready to let Carl in on all of her past just yet. This was supposed to be her night, but now it had all come crashing down on her.

She covered the phone with her hand to mute it and said:

"I am sorry, Carl. Can you wait in the living room for a bit? I have to take this call from Amy."

"No problem", Carl said, not seeming like he was bothered by a little hold-up **.** "Is that your stuff?" he asked, pointing to the suitcase on the bed. "If so, I can take it down stairs to the car then come back and get you."

"Yes it is. Thanks. I will be down in a minute," replied Lou.

As Carl had left the room with the luggage, Lou waved at him and heard Amy's voice.

 **"** Lou? Lou, are you still there?" Amy' **s** voice from the other end asked, prying her attention from Carl and back to the phone and Amy.

"Yes. I'm sorry, I had an interruption. Now where were we… Oh yeah", she then recalled what Amy had asked her. "Why did Dad leave and why don't I talk with Mom and Grandpa anymore." She didn't know what to say, so she just sighed and continued. "Amy, can we have this talk another time? I know I promised I'd answer to whatever you wanted to know, but I didn't expect you to go down this road… I am not prepared to talk about this right now, because it's such a complex issue and I have someplace I need to be."

Lou knew this to be the truth she was not ready to talk right now - well, never actually. She had put it all behind her and wanted it to stay there. The questions themselves had put a damper on her usual enthusiasm for going out with Carl, and she was now not even in the mood to get away with him for the weekend, no matter what the reason might be.

"No, Lou! This cannot wait," said a now very angry voice on the other end of the phone. What had brought all this on and why now? Lou wondered.

"Isn't Mom there? I am sure she can tell you what happened," Lou said, trying to get out of the conversation as quickly as she could.

"Yeah, she is. She is standing 3 feet away with a look of horror on her face, listening to me talk to you. That is the reason you have to tell me what you know, because she just told me a whopper of a story and I need to hear your side of it," Amy told her sister.

"We all know what happened. Mom and Grandpa drove Dad away," was Lou's short reply.

"Why though, Lou?" Amy asked again.

"Because they…" Lou began, sighing.

Why had he left, she did not really know, nor had she ever asked. She had gotten angry with them when they told her he was gone and had blamed them because she knew they were not happy with him. They thought he was lazy, but she knew he was hurting. So she had guessed that was the reason. Jack had always had problems with Tim because he did not help around the ranch more. So that had to be it.

"- thought he was lazy and not pulling his weight and you know how grandpa feels about that," Lou said with confidence.

"You are sure about that? I mean, there could not be another reason?" Amy asked again. She was finding the periods of silence from Lou's end disturbing. Was there more was there something that Lou did not want to tell her? Or had they both been deceived all this time?

"I am not sure what you mean by that question, Amy. I mean we have talked about this before, and I don't have any more information about that than what we have shared previously. So if that is all you need to know, Carl is waiting for me. We are going to a show, and then after work tomorrow, we are going away for a long weekend," Lou said, smiling as she thought of the possible outcome and even just spending time alone with him.

"So you would rather go with this random Carl than talk to your own sister?" snorted Amy over the phone. "So what if Mom is telling me that Dad beat her when he was on drugs and drinking, and Grandpa kicked him off Heartland when he caught him hitting her. Or the fact that your stupid school debt is going to cause us to lose Heartland!" Amy yelled at her phone as she disconnected from Lou. As a way to shut her sister out even more, she turned her phone off. She was still angry with her Mother and now with Lou as well. She glared at her Mother and started

"Where do you think you are going? We have not finished this talk yet!" said Marion curtly.

"Oh, we are finished, alright? And who knows, maybe I will sneak out and go to Jesse and do the things you seem to think we were doing anyway. Or maybe even better; I will go to Ty's loft tonight like Lou used to do when Scott lived there!"

She knew this last statement would not only shock but hurt her Mother even more deeply.

"You never saw anything after Dad left, did you? You want to know why? It was because it was always about you and your stupid horses," Amy shouted as she turned and walked into the house, slamming the door behind her.

Marion followed Amy into the house not to confront her again because she knew at the moment that would do no good. She went to the address book and looked up Lou's phone number she Amy had taken down this last Christmas when she had called and told her she had a new number. As she reached for the phone she could feel her hands trembling and wanted in the worst way for this there to have been another way. She picked up the phone and took a deep breath, almost 7 years she thought since she had heard her daughter's voice. It rang and then went to her messaging, she almost hung up but left a message instead.

…

"Let's go! We are going to be late," Carl said, opening the door and sticking his head in. He saw Lou standing in her bedroom doorway, staring at her phone with a look of bewilderment. "You okay?" he wanted to know.

Lou had not even heard Carl, her mind was 2000 miles away, still standing on the porch with Amy. Had she heard her right? Had he Mom actually told her those things? Were they true? What was all this about her debt and Heartland?

When she was able to focus again, Lou quickly dialed Amy's number, only to hear "I can't come to the phone right now, please leave a message."

"Lou?" Carl said as he reached out and touched Lou's shoulder.

The touch brought her back to reality, and she looked at him and said: "I am sorry I did not hear you come back."

"I am going to ask again - are you okay, Lou?"

"I don't know what I am at the moment…" she replied. "That was Amy on the phone, and she has just turned my world upside down, and I am not even sure why. All I know is that I have to get hold of her, but it seems she turned off her phone because I made her angry. "

"Well, let's go to the show. I have reservations at Del Posto afterwards. A show and Italian food always improves your mood," Carl replied as he tried to lift Lou's spirits.

"Maybe you are right," replied Lou. After all she had waited for 3 months to get these tickets and Del Posto was by her favorite Italian restaurant in town, and she was sure that Carl had put some thought into that as well because it usually took about a week to get a reservation at that time of night there.

Yes, she would put all this behind her. After all this night was all about her future, she would be doing the things she loved with the man she loved even more.

"Let's go", Lou said taking her hopefully-soon-to-be fiancé by the arm.

They had just stepped into the cab, when her phone rang. She started to look at the phone then decided to ignored the call and muted the phone and they proceeded to the show.

Carl had been going to ask why she had not answered the phone but considering the shape she was in the last time she had taken a call tonight he decided that maybe she knew best and he kept his question to himself. At the intermission, Lou excused herself to the powder room and when she was there alone, she looked at her phone. The call had been not from Amy as she had supposed, but from the Heartland home number. They had left a message, and she struggled with should she listen to it or not.

Finally she played the message. It was from her Mom.

"I am sorry you had to hear about all that in that way. Don't worry, we are going to be alright. Hope you don't let it ruin your night with Carl, whoever and whatever he is in your life. Love you, Lou."

Why had she felt the need to call her? They had not talked in years, and what made her think that information from the past was going to mess her up? She turned off her phone and went out to meet Carl and watch the rest of the show.

As they took their seats for the second act, the words "Don't worry we will be alright" would not leave her alone. Lou spent the rest of the show pondering what had she meant by them?

…..

Ty had finally gotten to the ranch, just in time to see Amy stomp off from her Mother and go into the house, slamming the door behind her. He had been tempted to go see what had happened, but when he saw Jack waving his arms first to get his attention, then waving him over to the barn, he figured that he and Copper had best take that route.

As he and Copper stopped next to Jack and Ty started to dismount, Jack started firing questions at him in a very angry voice, never stopping to allow Ty to answer.

"Just who the hell do you think you are? What makes you think you can just waltz into our lives and turn everything upside down? What the hell did you say to Amy anyway? Don't you ever say a thing about what you heard Marion say today to anyone, do you understand me?"

Ty had an answer on the tip of his tongue, but then thought better of letting it go any farther. He could see that he had done something that had upset Jack, and though he had asked questions, Ty was not sure Jack wanted answers - at least not the answers he was going to give him.

He looked over at the porch and saw Marion staring at the door, looking like she wanted to go in and then she did, only to reappear shortly thereafter. As she stepped out of the house she looked his way and started to walk over to the barn.

When she arrived, she walked on into the barn and said to Ty:

"We had better get him and rubbed down, then we need to have a talk", Marion said. As she said this, her face was emotionless even though her eyes told Ty she was far from it on the inside.

 **To be continued**


	15. Chapter 15

Sorry for the slow updates hopefully I will keep it to at least one a week for a while. Would love to hear from any who read this as to you take on the story. A critique so to speak as I am in uncharted waters here and wonder if this is doing what I had hoped it would when I began writing it. Thanks

Dale

What If Part 15

Ty and Marion walked into the barn and Jack followed closely behind, wanting to get his two cents worth in as well as he had only begun to tell this young upstart what he thought of him and the situation he had caused. Marion noticed her father following then and looking at her dad said: "No, Dad. This is between Ty and I right now. I am the one who created this whole mess, now it is my job to try and sort it out."

They unsaddled Copper, and Ty put the saddle and the blanket back on the rack, then hung the hackamore in the place where he had gotten it. Marion had put Coppers halter on him then hooked up to the leads they used when they groomed a horse and was getting the brushes so they could begin to rub him down.

"I still don't know what you said to Amy," Marion began. "I know she was very upset when she showed up from mending the fence - and she had left you behind, there must have been some reason for that as well she knows better than to leave someone new out there all alone."

Ty looked across Copper's back, trying to sense if Marion expected him to answer her or wait for her to continue with her statement. It soon became apparent that she was still deep in thought and was not really ready to listen to anything or anyone at the moment so he continued to brush Coppers back as he watched Marion struggle to find the words she wanted to say.

"Ty… when I first saw you in the home a few months ago, I admired what I saw you do, not once but a couple of times when you stood up for the underdog. That is the biggest reason I asked to have you placed with us. Yes, I knew all about your past - well, as much as I could from reading your files - but they never seemed to jive with what I saw when I watched you. The reason I brought you here was probably as much me being selfish as anything else. I, since my divorce, have needed something to keep me busy, a cause, if you may. I had never thought of it that way till just a little while ago when I was called out by Amy on the porch, "she continued.

Ty watched as Marion lowered her head and shuffled her feet. He was able to see that she was very uncomfortable at the moment and wished he knew what he could say or do to help her out in her time of need as she had with him by bringing him here to Heartland.

But what did he know about things such as this. He had no experience from which to draw on that might make things look better for her. He was finding out that the whole family thing was a bit more complicated than it looked. He had seen the joy a family can have together now he was looking at the pain it could case as well.

He had grown up his whole life in a family that lied so much that they had no idea what the truth was. He had felt that there was something different about this woman standing across the horse from him, but her talk earlier on the way home had shown him that she was no different than anyone one else.

Well, maybe that was a bit harsh but still she had lied, or hid, all this about Amy's father from her, and Ty could see where she might be a tad bit on the upset side. Keeping secrets from family was only a lie till they were found out and then usually they were devastating. As the usual reason for lies of omission were to try and protect you as they see it in someway. When you find out it tended to be a double hurt one from what caused you lie and the other the fact that you did not trust them enough to tell them the truth at the moment.

"The night you came home with me - well, when you showed up - and had stopped and picked up supper, showed me even more that I had made the right choice," said a very subdued Marion. "But you saw firsthand what not telling Jack and Amy did to what should have been, at minimum, a cordial greeting from both of them into the inquisition. I am sorry about that. But now I have a larger problem… Ty, what did you tell Amy?" Marion asked returning to her original question.

Now that the shock of the encounter with Amy had blown over, she needed to know what had started all of this. She wanted to believe that Ty had done something that would have caused her daughter to turn on her as she had, yet she feared that he had done nothing at all and this all fell back on her and Jack allowing her to believe a lie.

"I don't think I told her anything. She was very upset and started to bug me about what you were talking about when you and Jack rode off. I finally told her that even if I knew something that it would not be right to tell her. But as you probably know, that did not satisfy her very well. Then she made a complete fool out of me, letting my macho image of myself get me into all kinds of trouble. She –"

"What do you mean she let you get into trouble?" Marion had to ask **.** "What did you do that got you into trouble?" A thousand things flooded her mind trying to think what she could have done that would cause him to say he had gotten in trouble.

"Talking to her for one," replied Ty with a smile. "No, I did not get into trouble that way. She gave me a bit of a ranch hand's idea of letting me have enough rope to hang myself, as they say. I was ready to go fix the fence, and she told me the only way there was to ride. So, I said "great", and started to go get my bike. But she told me that I could not get there on the bike, and we had to take horses. I had seen you ride off, and after my run in with Paint, I thought I had it all figured out. I had my carrot and a cocky male attitude that said anything she can do, I can do better. I stand here before you to tell you that ain't true. After the little saddling incident, where I ended up on the floor looking up at the belly of Pegasus-."

"You ended up on the floor?" Marion replied in a worried as she looked at Ty trying to figure out what if anything had happened to him **.** "Did he buck you off? Amy knows that horse is too much for a beginning rider…"

"Take it easy on her, Mrs. Fleming," Ty said, "she was trying to take care of me, but when I refused to listen, she just let me do my thing. How I ended up on the floor was because Pegasus had held his breath. She tried to tell me to tighten the cinch again, but I knew it was tight after all I am a _man_." As he thought about it now, Ty could see how foolish he had been. "Then, she explained how maybe we should swap horses as Pegasus was a bit of a - in boy terms - hot rod. I did not like the fact that she felt she had to protect me and I argued and decided to show her I could ride, so like any drug store cowboy who had watched too many western movies, I kicked him into gear, so to speak. Then almost falling off hanging on for dear life, I was able to pull back on the reins hard and I again ended up on my back, looking up at the Alberta sky. Pegasus just stood there, wondering why I had gotten off so quickly think he was actually laughing at me as well…"

A look of fear went over Marion's face as she had to ask was he alright, even though him standing there in front of her should have told her that there was not much more to the fall than a bruised ego she knew that sometimes you don't know you are hurt till hours later. "You sure you are okay? I mean do you hurt or feel light headed at all." Now she was even more upset at Amy for leaving him behind what if he had been hurt and the symptoms had not show up till he was on his ride back.

"How did you end up on Copper?" she then wanted to know as the story kept having more and more twists and turns and she was having trouble keeping everything straight.

"I turned over the keys to the race car and took the ones for the safer jeep," Ty explained. "It still had 4 wheel drive and would get me anywhere I wanted to go, and with the top down, it gave a view that I will never forget." This comment made Marion smile as she took a deep breath in relief, felt good to smile – Then we rode on out to the fence and talked some more. A more few questions from her and I thought maybe I could stop her by asking her some if my own. Seems the questions about your family situation were not the right approach. She became very agitated, to say the least, and when we had finished the fence, she took off after she had asked if I knew the way home.

Marion stood there and nodded, then asked a question that took Ty by surprise.

"Do you have feelings for Amy? I know you have only been here for day, but she reminded me of an earlier time when I had a boy in the loft and said something that upset me very much. I have not been a very good mother to my daughters since their dad left and I have probably ignored signs of my girls reaching out for help and attention as they just needed someone to show they cared", Marion spoke in a very humbled voice. Looking up and trying to put a smile on her face she continued. "Sorry for the rabbit trail… What I want to say is I think that Amy sees something in you that may draw her to you. And now I am asking as a Mom that you do everything in your power to discourage her. You will be working together, but I need you to keep her at arm's length," she continued as she thought about what Amy had said. "If anything, I would like you to treat her as if she was your sister and protect her. I know you are good at that."

"I don't know what to say…" said a very surprised Ty. He had not given it a second thought till Marion had brought it up, but there was something about Amy that had drawn him to her as well. He knew his track record with girls and could fully understand where her Mom was coming from.

Yet at the same time, he felt it a little odd that she would make the request she had, seeing how there was nothing between them. But then maybe he thought that was what she was trying to prevent and he owed her that much at least.

"But if that is what you want, then I will do my best to comply."

"Thank you," said a relieved Marion. "I seem to trust you more than the rest of my family at the moment…" She knew it was probably an odd thing to say, but it was the truth **.** "Jack is suspicious of everyone and Amy, well, let's just say she is acting every part of being a teen. I have to ask one more thing of you; don't ask or answer any more questions about what is going on with the family or our finances. I should never have shared what I did and right now I am not sure what to do next. "

Ty had just finished with Copper and stepped around the horse and looked at Marion.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked.

"Please, just do as I requested and maybe stay away from the house for a day or so till I can figure this all out. There is too much going on in our lives at the moment for me to have to worry about one more thing going wrong," she said in a very somber voice. She knew that she was putting Ty in a difficult spot, especially him being the new addition to the family so to speak, but since she was already in a middle of a mess, Marion tried her best to find a way that would work somewhat best for all of them.

This left no doubt in Ty's mind that Marion was not just talking from emotion, she had thought this out, and he owed her that much. Though Ty had to wonder what she meant by something going wrong in context to what she had just asked him. What was she afraid was going to happen?

"I will," he promised, thinking while he would love to know what she was talking about, he was not going to push her now. Maybe when the dust had settled a bit, they could talk more.

Marion turned to walk away, when her mind snapped back to Copper and Ty as he remembered she had left them standing there she asked: "You okay with putting Copper up?"

When Ty had nodded, she continued, "I guess you are wondering how you are going to eat too," she said with a faint smile. "I will bring your meals to you till things settle down and I will be the one who gives you your chores as well. I think the less contact you have with Dad at the moment, the better. Same could be said of Amy, I guess."

Then she turned and walked out of the barn, making her way to the house.

Ty just stood there and watched till the woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders, whom he had come to care for very much, kicked the dirt off her boots and entered the house.

 **to be continued**


	16. Chapter 16

Sorry for the delay hopefully I am now back on track and can finish this. Thanks to all who have continued to encourage me to finish this and hopefully it will have been worth the effort on your part. Dale

What If (part 16)

Marion walked into the house not sure what kind of atmosphere she was going to face. There had been a lot that had happened in the past few hours and now she needed to make sure that she finally took care of things that should have been taken care of years ago.

* * *

Jack was sitting at the kitchen table when she walked in, he looked up peering over the cup of coffee he held in his hands, he opened his mouth to speak but before he could say a word, she held up her hand, and shook her head letting him know that she was not ready to talk with him just yet **.**

Jack to tell by the look on his daughters face that it would do no good to try and talk to her no matter what the conversation would have been about, she was on a mission and till that was done nothing else mattered.

"Where is she?" Marion asked instead. Jack knew instinctively that Amy was the "she" Marion had asked about.

"I think she went to her room, and from the sound I heard when she closed the door you probably don't have to knock , she should be able to see you standing there, as it is probably off the hinges," replied Jack. Though Jack had wanted to go after Amy and confront her for her actions earlier he knew that it was not his place at the moment they could have that talk later. And if he had learned nothing else after living his life in a house full of women he knew when he should take action and when he should just sit and nod his head, well most of the time anyway.

"Thanks, Dad, I will take it from here. You said, I am the one who caused this problem and now I am the one who has to make things right again." Marion replied as she continued towards Amy's room. Thinking how she probably should have taken the time to at least listen to what her father had to say. She also knew that conversation would not be a short one and at the moment Amy was what was the most important.

When she reached Amy's door she knocked announcing who it was then waited for an answer before asking if she could come in. She was just about to knock again as she had not heard anything from the other side of the door when she heard Amy's curt retort.

"I don't want to talk to you. Go away!"

Marion took a deep breath closing her eyes and let it out slowly as she gathered her thoughts and gained control of her emotions. The last thing she needed to do right now was to make things worse if that were possible. So in a soft calm tone she spoke to her daughter on the other side of the closed door.

"Well, we are going to have to talk about this sooner or later, and I would like to make it now if at all possible and would like you to invite me in. What I have to say I think is important Amy , you have to come out sometime and I am not going anywhere. So whether it is now or later we will have this talk ," Marion explained to her daughter. "I know what I did was wrong and you have every reason to hate me at the moment, but now I need to tell you a few things that you still don't know and then I will answer any questions you may have."

Marion heard some shuffling going on in the room and then Amy spoke again. "I guess you might as well come on in, seems you are going to tell me whether I want to listen or not. And I want to look you in the face when you lie to me this time," Amy said.

Marion was glad she was on the other side of the door at the moment as she did not want Amy see how much her words had hurt her, she may have deserved them but they cut her to her soul. She did her best to gain her composure as she open the door and walked in.

"I have never lied to you, Amy, about anything, unless you are calling my not telling you why your father was asked to leave as a lie. If that is the case then yes, then I lied to you by omission. I only did that to protect you, and did not want it to influence how you thought of your father. Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets for what we did, but when Tim was sober and around, he was a good father to both of you. I could not bring myself to destroy that image," Marion replied in her defense.

"Yeah, you had to protect me and my feelings from the truth about an abusive father! Something I had to learn about because you had told a complete stranger all about it!"

Marion thought back to her talk with Ty and realized what Amy hadsaid was true, and the omission for whatever reason was still a lie because she had allowed Amy and Lou both to believe something that was not the whole truth, and they had formed their opinions and lived their lives according to what they knew. Now that had all been stripped away and she could understand their reason for confusion and anger.

"Okay... You are right, Amy, and I was wrong," she admitted. "And all the excuses in the world will never erase the wrong that Dad and I did to you girls. All I can do now is to try and tell you the complete truth everything, and answer your questions about whatever you want know about anything."

Amy looked at her mom and could tell that she was very broken at the moment, and in that state of mind she would probably do just as she had said and tell her everything.

"Why has dad never contacted us?" Amy wanted to know with her first question.

"I don't really know for sure. I think he has kept in contact with Lou but I don't know that for sure. He did try and get up with me a few times and I told him no. And I am not sure that there have not been other times where Grandpa intercepted the Tim's attempts and never told me about them. I know for me I just could not take a chance, as I was worried about everyone's safety, after what I had been through to let him back in our lives here at Heartland. I did not think he would, or maybe even could, change as he was always so strong willed and said to the end that there was nothing wrong with him. I had encouraged him to seek help several times and he always refused to see anyone. Dad said he came by one day a while back and he had thrown him off the place and threatened him if he ever set foot on the ranch again. That was the last I heard from him..."

Marion told everything she knew in hopes it would give Amy what she wanted - whether she liked the answers or not. "I still have a feeling that Lou has kept in contact with him though and while I did not approve then, I never told her she could not talk with him. I have no idea what he has told Lou about what has happened, but I know that whatever it was, it was how he saw it all going down and it would not have been his fault."

"How do I know who to believe if Lou has a different story than you do?" Amy scoffed at her mom's explanation.

"If it comes to that, I can give both of you the proof of my side of the story. But I hope you are able to make up your minds without it, so I hope it does not come to that," Marion replied in a very somber tone.

She thought about the pictures that Jack had insisted in taking that night, of the broken chair and mirror in the room. The ones of her bloodied, bruised face and the bruises that she had kept hid from everyone that he had seen that night for the first time because Tim had ripped her blouse. Those pictures still haunted her and she had thought many times about how she should have gotten rid of them, but then Tim would call in the beginning and now and then she would hear about him in a conversation, and she needed those to remind her that what she had done was right and needed to be done and they helped her be strong. Yet strangely she loved him still to this day and would have probably taken him back if not for those pictures.

Amy couldn't remember when she had seen her mom look so sad, she realized there was more to this story than met the eye and she knew she had to get to the bottom of it. Even if it hurt her mom to talk about it she deserved to know and besides she had not been thinking of her feelings or they would not be her now.

"Why did Lou leave and not come home?" Amy wanted to know, this had been a question in her mind for several years now and neither she nor her mom or grandpa would talk about it. So now she had to strike while the iron was hot.

Marion looked up at Amy and could only shrug her shoulders and shake her head. There were tears beginning to form in the corners of her eyes and she looked as if she was about to break down and cry. Again she took a deep breath and continued to try and answer Amy's questions as best and honestly as she could.

"I can't say for sure. Only she knows the answer to that question **.** I know - or I think - it had to have something to do with Tim leaving. She was a daddy's girl and she used to bug me all the time about working things out with him. She told me over and over how I always said that things worth having are worth fighting for. I could never get up the nerve to tell her what had really happened..."

She knew that she had had to sacrifice her own relationship with Lou in order for her to keep the image she had of her father. Marion knew how important Tim was for Lou and she didn't have the heart to destroy that bond even at the cost of losing her.

"I also think she might have thought I was seeing someone else during that time and I am sure that also bothered her, though I told her there was nothing going on between us," Marion continued.

This was news to Amy and she now was even angrier at her mom, whom only minutes before she had begun to feel sorry for. "Wait... So you were seeing someone...?"

Marion could sense that Amy didn't like what she was hearing as it gave her more reason to believe that what she had thought to be the truth was just one more lie, and everything she had heard was the ramblings of a woman who had cheated on her father. .

"I will tell you the same thing I told Lou; no, but there was someone in my life who helped me through the rough patch I faced after Tim had left. I had met him at a show after Tim had left and while I may have fallen for him if we had stayed around each other long enough, I realized that I had you two girls to take care of and so I walked away and he never contacted me again, nor I him."

She knew this wasn't usually a topic mothers and daughters had conversations about - especially when the daughter was Amy's age - but she had promised to tell the whole truth and she knew that in order to gain back Amy's trust, she had to be honest about everything, even her own feelings that she had kept well hidden in order to protect her daughters.

"So with that in her mind, and as I said I think she was in contact with Tim, I am sure she formed her own idea of what had happened, and by me not refuting what she thought was the truth, she grew apart from your grandfather and I," Marion continued, feeling strange about now opening this world to Amy too. "I see now that I should have told her the truth and still have let her talk with her dad. Then she could have made up her mind knowing both sides of the story."

"So, you think that Dad lied to Lou then?" Amy replied sarcastically, trying her best to keep up with every point of view and still skeptical of what she was hearing.

"I can't and will not say that, because as I said, I have no idea what he might have said to her. What I do know is that he was full of himself and nothing was ever his fault, but I also feel that he would not lie to you girls - or at least I hope that he would not, anyway."

Tim's relationship with his girls was far different than the one he had had with Marion. Even though he had been abusive toward Marion, both mentally and physically, his bond with his girls was somehow more sacred, and in his own way, he had loved them probably more than he had ever loved Marion.

"You said we might lose the ranch because of Lou's debt," Amy moved on to another topic of conversation. "You said it had to do with her schooling and expenses during that time. Is there more to that story as well...?"

"No, that is all that really matters, and I am sorry I told you about that because I don't want you to blame Lou - or think that I do. I was afraid at the moment and I had made some very stupid financial decisions that got us where we are now, and at the moment all I could think of was the loans I had taken out for her and how they had been what had gotten us to where we are. But truth be told, we are in trouble because of me and me alone. I tried to take care of my hurting by trying to buy Lou's love and I ignored all the signs that we could not afford to keep doing what I was doing. On top of spending on Lou's schooling I was taking on the expense of all the horses we took in without any income to support it. So if you have to blame anyone, blame me."

Marion didn't like to feel like she was disliked or even the subject of someone's anger, but she couldn't stand the blame being put on someone else either, because this mess, if she was to really think about it, was mostly her fault. If she was going to be a truly good mother, she had to own up to her own mistakes and show her daughter how it had should have been handled. No matter the cost and the hurt it caused because in the end she hoped it showed Amy that if you are not honest, completely honest, it would cause even more hurt, as it was doing now, and it was the right thing to do.

Amy looked at her, not sure how she was feeling about everything she had just heard. It was a lot to take in, and the easiest solution would have probably been to put all the blame on her mother, but somehow now that she knew there was more to it that. She did not understand it completely, but did she realized it wasn't all as black and white as she had thought it to be.

To be continued


	17. Chapter 17

What if (chapter 17)

Ty had finished putting Copper back in his stall and then began to look for things to do. Marion had walked away, saying that she would give him a list of chores later, but right now he felt the need to be busy. He saw that a couple of the stalls needed to be cleaned out. Not knowing how often that was supposed to be done, he found the wheelbarrow and pitch fork and proceeded to clean them up, anyway. He found that being busy helped him to think and at the moment there was a lot to think about.

When he had finished and had put the new bedding in the stalls for the horses, he felt better. Even more so when he realized that he had actually walked into the stalls with the horses still in them and had not even given it a second thought.

"Making progress, Ty Borden," he told himself out loud, thinking how just this morning he had cowered in the corner of the stall.

He didn't t know what to do next, nor did he know his way around the ranch yet, other than how to find the pasture he and Amy had visited earlier. So, he went up to his room in the loft and proceeded to unpack - something he had not done the night before. He opened the big loft doors to let in some fresh air and was surprised by the breeze that welcomed him He could feel the heat of the sun on the shingled, uninsulated roof and was happy to know that he had a built in, natural AC. He out the open doors and stared out at the view that spread out before him. The area around the barn that gave way to the large forested expanse leading to the snow covered mountain peaks. One thing was certain, the view was better here than in the city.

He put the last of his clothes in the drawers and slid his suitcase under the bed, then took off his boots and shirt and lay down, enjoying the breeze that passed through the loft. As he lay on the bed, he looked around the open loft. Yeah, it was not much if you just looked at it as a loft. There was no insulation between him and the outside and, when he looked at the roof, he could see a spot of light here and there that let him know the roof probably leaked when it rained. At least there were no holes over the bed that he could see anyway. Despite its flaws, it was his place, so to speak. He could come and go as he pleased, and that freedom was important to him.

It felt good to be able to just open the door and leave, if he wanted, instead of being locked inside as he had been before coming here. It was also important to him to have somewhere to come too that was his when he needed to be alone. Here, he could just let the silence of the country soothe him. He had grown up in the hustle and bustle of the big city and he understood just how important this was to his life at the moment. Learning to survive in a world that wasn't always friendly toward the weak, had made him strong, but it had also made him into a bit of a loner. He had learned to survive by being independent, looking out only for himself and little else.

He could not stop thinking about how much had happened in the past day and a half. He had been witness to a way of life he had never seen before or had expected to see for that matter. He never thought he'd be living on a ranch, working with and cleaning up after horses. Growing up, he could hardly be made to keep his room clean enough to walk through. Now, he was responsible for cleaning road apples, as Jack had called them, from a horses stall. He had also already learned how to saddle, ride, and fall off a horse. Of course, that last one was the only one that seemed to come naturally to him.

Things were different now, for him, but he had learned something else about ranch life, besides the differences in the chores, and how to do them and care for the animals. Life here was just like life everywhere else. It revolved around the interactions of the humans who inhabited it.

Through the stillness of the day, broken only by the sound of a fly that would not leave him alone, Ty heard the sound of a car's tires on the gravel of the driveway. The sound grew louder, until he heard it stop outside the barn and he wondered why they had not gone to the house, where everyone else parked. Curious who it was, he got up and looked out the open loft doors. He was surprised to see a blonde girl getting out of a fancy, red convertible. Jack and Marion drove old, beaten up trucks, so this shiny sports car stuck out like a sore thumb. The young girl didn't dress like anyone else he had met here, either. She looked more like the girls he had known in the city.

Ty looked down and as she was about to walk into the barn he greeted her from the loft. He wanted to find out who she was and why she was there, perhaps he'd be able to help her with something. As the startled girl stopped and looked up she stared at him. A smile stretched across her face as her eyes scanned over him. Ty realized he was still shirtless and barefoot. He folded his arms across his chest and made a mental note, reminding himself not greet visitors unless he was fully clothed.

"So you're what Amy has been keeping in the loft," the girl said, still looking him over.

Ty cleared his throat and took a step back. "I'm Ty, I just started working here."

"Oh yeah, Soraya said the Bartlett's had a new ranch hand, but she did not tell me you were so good-looking-"

"Is there something I can help you with?" Ty asked, cutting her off.

"I'm Ashley, Ashley Stanton," she replied, extending her hand toward him waving. When Ty didn't reciprocate, she sighed and let her hand fall back to her side. "I'm looking for Amy," she told him, "Is she up there with you?"

"No, she's not!" Ty replied, not liking what Ashley seemed to imply by the question and the tone of voice she used in asking it.

"Well, can you tell me where she is?" Ashley questioned, with a tilt of her head and a smile that told Ty that she did not believe him and that made him uncomfortable again.

"Why should I tell you anything, I don't even know you," he replied curtly, not willing to give out any more information than was required as he had been warned by Marion and he was going to take that warning very seriously.

"Relax ranch hand... I was just asking a question," Ashley replied, "What is all of this secrecy? Just "who" is up there with you if it is not Amy? I have been up there many times and there is nothing but a bed and what kind of ranch hand would be lying around on a bed in the middle of the day by himself? And if you truly are alone I could fix that if you know what I mean."

Ty thought about it and realized that he should not be surprised by this type of conversation as it was how most of the girls he knew would have talked. Still he had kind of hoped that when he had left the city he would have left that part of his life behind as well.

Ashley continued, "You act as if I had just asked you for some kind of top secret information. Again, my name is Ashley. My brother is Amy's boyfriend, and I came by to tell her about a party. Since you will not divulge her location, could you tell her that she is invited to a party at our house on Friday night?

Ty realized he had probably seemed a little weird to her, but her blunt talk had taken him by surprise. He regained his composure and decided he could do as she asked and pass along the message. "Yeah, I'll tell her."

"Thanks, and if you are not too busy up there in the loft, with whomever, you can come along as well. You can be my guest," said Ashley.

"Well, I'll think about," Ty said, ready for this conversation to be over.

"Great, I hope to see you at the party so we can get to know each other better!" Ashley, started to walk toward her car, then stopped and faced Ty again. "You know, if Amy is up there, I wouldn't tell anyone... besides, I certainly couldn't blame her," she said with a wicked little smile and a wink.

Ty watched as she got back in her car and then as it disappeared from his view, wondering just who this Ashley was besides the sister of Amy's boyfriend. He went back to his bed and sat there, thinking about the girl and the invite. He had to admit that she was pretty and, from the looks of the car, she had money as well... not a bad combination. Marion had asked him to stay away from Amy, except when they were working together, and to try and dissuade her from becoming attached to him. Though, that one still had him a bit surprised as he did not see how anything like that could ever happen. Maybe getting to know some other girls would help him show Marion and Amy by making her see that he was not interested.

….

Amy sat in her room, after Marion had left, and thought about the conversation she had just had with her mom. There were so many things that she needed to sift through. Though she had many more questions to ask she did not feel as if the maybe knew the most important one's at the moment.

What if everything that Marion had told her was true? How did that affect her feelings toward her dad, who when she thought about it, was hardly ever a passing thought in her world. Had Lou, who had always been there for her, really been deceived all this time or did she know something as well and it was only her who had been left in the dark. What was she supposed to feel about Lou's role, as explained by her mom, in them possibly losing Heartland?

Then there was TY! Who was this person who had shown up, not even two days ago, and turned her world upside down? He knew more about her and her sister and the relationship between her mom and dad than she did. What was it that made people open up to him? He was a know-it-all, arrogant, city boy "convict". Why had her mom brought such a person into her life. Yet, when she thought about it more, she realized that there was something about Ty that made even her want to trust him. And if there was anything good to say about him it was that he seemed to truly care about her mom and was willing to go to all lengths to ensure that he did not betray her in any way. And if she were truly honest with herself it had also been fun to watch him try and play the macho man, when they had gone for their ride. While she had tried not to show it, she also had been surprised at his humble way of admitting defeat and changing horses with her. She was sure that had to have hurt his manly pride as she could barely stop from laughing at him as he lay on the ground, well once she knew he was alright anyway.

She could already tell this was going to be a tough time in her life. She had to come up with some answers, and not just ones that made her feel good, but ones that would put to bed the nagging thoughts in her head and let her get back to feeling like life was getting back to normal, whatever that might be...

Just then her phone rang and when she picked it up she heard Soraya ask, "Hey, how's it going?"

"How long do you have to listen?" Amy asked.

…..

Marion walked back to the kitchen and Jack looked up at her and handed her a cup of tea. "Sounded like world war three in there. Are you ok?" he asked.

"I'm not sure what I am right now, "she replied. "I think she took it fairly well, considering all that has transpired in the past couple of hours. I know that I did my best to let her know the truth of the situation and now it is time to let her weigh all that information."

"You showed her the pictures, right?" Jack asked, quite pointedly.

"No, I did not show them to her and I hope I never will have to. But, I know that I will never omit anything that might cost me the love of another daughter."

To be continued


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

"Lou, where's your mind?" said Carl as he touched his girlfriend's shoulder.

The show was over the theater was almost empty, and Lou was still in her seat watching the now empty stage. She had not joined him in the standing ovation or changed the look on her face that he had noticed anyway even once during the final act. At some point he had noticed that she had hardly moved her head and had been seemingly staring straight ahead not really watching what was happening on stage. It was as if her mind was anywhere but on the show, and this was very un-Lou like and so different from how she had reacted during the first act of the show. She had hardly stopped poking him making sure he had noticed what she had just seen. Though at the moment he did not think much about it, he now realized that Lou had never come back, mentally, from intermission.

"Oh, I am sorry," said Lou as his words brought her back to reality, though it was more reactionary than giving him her attention.

Carl wondered if his choice of the play had been a wrong one. Though it had been all she could talk about since she had heard it had opened. Seeing her sit there as she was seemingly lost to everything and one about her caused a very concerned Carl to ask again, "You sure you are okay?"

This was not the Lou he knew. She was always so happy and when it came to shows, she was the one who wanted to go and was quick to talk about what they had just watched. Carl had come to know that if there was anything that might rival Lou's love for him, it would be her love of the theater. She seemed to come alive when they went to a show and it would be days before she let go of the very last little detail she had to discuss with him.

Lou felt embarrassed as she looked at Carl. She began to remember that this was supposed to be their special time; a show they had waited for months to get tickets to see, and then she knew there was to be a romantic dinner together and then...

She was gone again and she just sat there and stared at Carl, looking as if she wanted to say something but she could not get her mom's voice out of her head. She had long ago told herself that she no longer needed nor wanted any part of her or her grandfather or the sleepy little town of Hudson Alberta; she had made a new home for herself away from there, in the hustle and bustle of New York City, a life that she had come to love, she had a wonderful job where she had just been promoted and she was with the one person in the world she wanted most to be with. And still, she had stopped thinking of him, the play, dinner and even what she had hoped would be the most important for her - or so she had thought - the weekend and what might come from it.

Slowly she let go of her thoughts and looked up and smiled as she came back to the real world again for a moment.

"I don't know what to say, Carl" she stated as she tried to find the words to tell Carl what was going on with her at the moment. "I received a call from my mom - and, yes, I still have one, though I doubt you or anyone for that matter knew if she was still alive. - After I my talk with Amy this evening she was upset and hung up on me, When I received the phone call on the way to the theater I ignored my phone when I got another call, thinking it was just my sister getting over her teen tantrum and figured it was her turn to wait. I decided to look and see if she had left a message between acts that were when I saw it was from my mom. We have not talked in years but she had called and left a message and since listening to it I can't think of anything else..."

Carl looked at Lou and he helped her to her feet, he took her in his arms to comfort her, thinking something devastating must have happened.

"Is everyone at home alright? Did someone get hurt - or worse?" he asked.

"No, neither of those things, but I don't know what to think at the moment." Taking Carl's arm, she looked at him and smiled as she said as they walked out: "Why don't we go eat and I will fill you in on my family situation, if you like - well, as much as I know at the moment. I am so sorry that I have ruined your, our, evening she corrected herself. I want to make it up to you. I don't want this to come between us, especially not tonight." said Lou as she tried to bring herself back to the reason she had been so happy earlier in the day. It was hopefully to be one of the most important weekends of her life and now...

"I would like that, Lou," replied Carl bending over to give her a kiss on the forehead.

He hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address, Lou clung to Carl's arm, but was again, somewhere else mentally, not saying a thing as she stared out the front of the cab. When they pulled up in front of the restaurant she was surprised by his voice telling her they were there.

They walked in and were greeted with a smile, saying nice to see you again telling them that their table was ready. "It is good to see you again Miss Fleming said the waiter when he pulled out her chair to seat her, she took her seat without giving a response. So much unlike the Miss Fleming he knew who always greeted him with a smile and a friendly word that he too had to ask.

"Is everything alright, Miss Fleming?"

A question that, again, brought Lou back to the present long enough to give him a nod and a "yes I am fine thank you for asking" before resuming her Trans like state.

Carl noticed that the thoughts of Lou's mother and sister apparently weren't going to leave her alone and it was starting to make everything awkward. This was new ground for Carl as the Lou he knew was never without and opinion or comment about anything they did. After they were seated, he asked what she would like to drink; she just shrugged and told him to order. It was again a very un-Lou like comment, and in spite of what she had said as they left the theater, she was not talking about her family - or anything for that matter - and it was beginning to make him a bit edgy.

He was beginning to see that this was not going to be the evening he had planned, and as someone who liked to plan everything out perfectly and have things to fall into place as orchestrated, Carl was starting to get restless. He had gone out of his way to make this the perfect night and now these people he didn't even know existed were more on Lou's mind more than him. He had spared no expense and he had booked the cabin for this very special weekend, so getting no reaction from Lou was beginning to bother his very structured personality. He did not like surprised and this certainly fit into that category. He had wanted to ask Lou a very important question but now he was having second thoughts wondering if maybe her answer would be one more surprise he did not want to hear. Had he misjudged the feelings of the woman sitting at the table across from him?

Who was this woman sitting across the table from him and what was going on in that mind of hers.

He was taking her at her word that it was about home, but why should a phone call from a mother she had not talked about from a place she had not talked about since he had known her these past 2 years cause her to change so suddenly? He needed answers and he needed them as soon as possible. He wanted his girlfriend back and he had to tell his firm what his plans were on Monday and if he gave the wrong answer, he could possibly lose out on a big promotion.

"Would you like more wine, dear?" he asked Lou after he had finished his glass of wine in silence. Maybe getting a few more drinks down her would help as she usually got quite vocal after a few glasses of wine.

He when he did not get an answer and he realized he too had been lost in thought, because though his glass was empty he had not noticed that she had not even taken a drink from hers yet, he was beginning to wonder if Lou would ever come out of her funk.

He ordered them something to eat, as Lou had not seemed interested to even participate in that decision, but since they had eaten here before he knew what she would probably have ordered. After they had been served Carl began to eat his dinner and when he had finished, again he noticed she had barely touched her food nor even finished her first glass of wine. Carl had noticed her poking her food and taking a hold of her glass, but apparently no food had ever left the plate. Instead she had sat there with that 1000 mile stare the whole time and had acknowledged him a few times with a simple word or head gesture and nothing more.

So most of the evening had been spent in silence, and it was hardly the kind of experience one would expect to get from someone they loved, at one of the most romantic restaurants in New York City.

Carl did not even ask her if she would like desert, he simply asked for the check and paid the bill and walked Lou out to the taxi.

When they were outside Carl knew he had to make a decision to let Lou go home to her apartment and work out what was on her mind or continue as they had planned go to his place so they could leave early in the morning for the cabin. So he tried to break through to her one more time.

"Why don't you just tell me about it", he requested, not really expecting a reply after everything that had gone on so far, and truth be known he was not really interested, because he was annoyed the evening so far had seemed to have been such a waste. "It's obvious that whatever your mother said on the phone is bothering you and maybe it won't leave you alone unless you talk about it."

Lou turned to him and replied as she realized she had been with Carl all night yet she had not been with him at all. "Sorry, Carl, I am sure you have noticed my mind has been somewhere else, somewhere it has not been in years; home and family. I don't even know where to begin; all I know is that I need to do something about it." She turned and looked at Carl taking his hands. "Can you come with me? I need to go home."

Carl furrowed a brow, wondering if he had heard her right **.** "You want me to come to- He began to search all of his conversations with Lou and he could recall her ever talking about family or home, but in New York that was not all that odd as people tended to be more private. So he asked, "Where is home for you, anyway Lou?"

"Hudson, Alberta," she replied.

"Alberta... as in Canada?" Carl said with a surprised look on his face.

"Yes", Lou said, nodding.

"You are not American...?"

Sure, at times he had noticed Lou speaking a little differently than him, but all you had to do is go one block in New York and they spoke a different language. So it had never occurred to him that she was not from the US.

"Why should where I am from make a difference?" asked Lou. She had never thought about it, but the fact that Carl would question where she was from bothered her.

"Well, what if your visa expires and they did not renew it. You would have to move back to Canada and it would have been the first time I'd heard about you being a Canadian? Or let's say, we would get married and we'd have to go through all the investigations to determinate if our relationship is even real?" asked a now visibly upset Carl.

"Why does it matter when our relationship "is" real?" Lou replied.

"Is it? It seems like I don't even know you, Lou. I didn't know you were Canadian or that you even had any family left other than your sister. You never talk about your life before you came to New York." He began to think of all kinds of things that should have told him that she was hiding something from him but he had been too much in love to notice. What if I had asked you to marry me and when we went to get the marriage license people asked about your background and I wouldn't have had a clue about it.

"I didn't think it would matter..." Lou said. She had her reasons to keep her past in the past, but it was hard to tell them to Carl. "Besides, we aren't getting married any time soon, are we?" Though in her mind she had a feeling that was what this weekend was all about, right now she was so upset that she felt like putting the spotlight back on him.

"We could have been, but now I don't know... Who would I have been marrying? I don't even know who you are Lou...?" Carl replied, shaking his head.

He then hailed a taxi and got in, "I will send your stuff to your apartment when I get home", he said as he got in and then told the taxi drive to go, leaving Lou standing alone in front of the restaurant. Maybe it was about her keeping things from him, but it was also the frustration of the ruined night and weekend and the fact that he had to make that decision on Monday that made him want to get away.

She sighed, realizing she had screwed up big time. Carl had been the best thing she had going for her in a while and now she had ruined everything.

But now if anything, it gave her even more reason to go back to Hudson and clean up the mess that had started it all, or maybe more likely finished it.

Then maybe her life could get back to normal.

The taxi dropped her off at the airport and she walked to the counter, "I would like a ticket to Calgary Alberta" she said handing the ticket clerk her credit card.

To be continued


	19. Chapter 19

What If Chapter 19

Ty had spent the rest of the afternoon and evening tinkering around in the loft. While he wanted to do something, he had not been there long enough to know what he should do and what he shouldn't. He had lots of questions and wondered if he supposed to feed the horses at night and clean their stalls again? How about water he had watched them drinking out of the buckets hung in the stalls how often were they refilled. These were just a few of the questions that were keeping his mind going and he was thankful for them as they helped him put aside the rest of the happenings of the day.

He heard noise coming from the barn below that was different than the sounds of the horses moving about, he had now become very aware of and decided to go check it out. He stopped part way down the stairs and watched Amy getting some feed from the feed box and giving it to the horses. He was about to continue down to learn from her about the evening chores when he heard her begin to talk to one of the horses. From the sounds of that one way conversation he felt it was best if he just went back to the loft.

After Amy left Ty again sat by the open loft doors and stared at the now beautiful night Alberta sky. He didn't know that there were that many stars, he had grown up in and had hardly ever left the city and he could see now that those lights dimmed and hid so many of the stars. He was lost once again in the quiet of the night when he heard the door on the house close and he looked down to see Marion on her way to the barn.

Marion had come with Ty's supper and gave him a list of chores she wanted him to do the next day. Ty could tell by the look on her face she, like Amy, had a lot going on behind those blue eyes. While he wanted to ask questions of Marion, he remembered the conversation he had had earlier and felt that if she wanted too she would share with him as she had before. But this time she was lost in her thoughts, ones that seemed to have put the weight of the world on her and a sadness that looked as if it would not allow her to take one more step.

When she turned to go, Ty waited for her to speak, but when she said nothing he spoke up saying goodnight to her and she only nodded and continued to walk towards the stairs. When she neared the stairs, Ty remembered the visit from Ashley earlier in the day. He figured since he was not allowed in the house at the moment and she had not opened a conversation, he felt that he should tell Marion about the party so she could tell Amy.

Even though, when he thought about it, he figured that she would not want her to be anywhere near Jesse after what had transpired the night before. But he decided that was not his call to make, so he told Marion about the request.

The news that Amy had been invited to a party would normally not have been a big thing to Marion, but after what Jack had said the night before, and the talk she had had with Amy this afternoon she was no **w** very leery. She did not want not to tell her daughter about the invite, but she realized at the moment that was the last thing she could do. Amy did not trust her mom as it was right now and how was she going to explain her reason for not having on her own with Jesse. She had had tried so hard to get Amy to believe her earlier and that she only cared for Amy's well-being and had only told her what she had because she wanted her to trust her. But when she had left, Marion was not sure she had accomplished that and her not allowing her to go would be telling Amy that she did not trust her not something that she wanted to do. Marion turned away again letting out a sigh just one more thing to worry about had been added to her list to try and figure out what she should do weighing all of her options. As she started down the stairs once more, she heard Ty say:

"Ashley also invited me to come to the party as well, so is it okay if I go?"

Why he had asked Marion for her approval, he was not sure. Maybe he guessed that it was because she was responsible for him before the law after all, so it was the right thing to do.

Ty's question stopped Marion in her tracks and she turned to him; he may have just given her an answer to her dilemma. Her biggest worry and reason for not thinking about letting or not letting Amy go to the party - who would keep an eye on her - and now maybe she had her answer.

"Sure that would be fine, replied Marion and now I have a request of you? And before you answer I want to say that this probably seems like a contradiction to what I asked of you earlier, would you mind taking Amy to the party and then kind of keep an eye on her while you are there?"

After what he had heard at the supper table the night before he was not sure that this was such a good idea and as Ty looked at Marion he was not sure what to say. First of all because of the table conversation, he had not expected Marion to let Amy go. Secondly, he had spent much of his life trying not to get involved in family dynamics as they had always ended poorly for him. Lastly he could not help the feeling of his being used as a babysitter/spy - what was he going to be expected to do anyway, after all Amy was fifteen-years-old, not a toddler.

"So what am I supposed to do for you at the party, Spy on her?" He found himself asking. "Am I to completely ignore the fact that I would be there to have fun as well? I will make this promise to you as my boss I will ensure she is safe, but that is as far as I will go, though I have one more question for you, why me? I am sure that there will be some of Amy's other friends there couldn't you ask one of them?"

"In answering your first question; I understand, Ty, and I would not ask you to do any more than just that," replied Marion, though she wanted him to do so much more. But she would take any help she could get at the moment. "Yes I know you haven't been out like this for a while, so I want you to have fun too. As to why you, I don't really know many of the people Stanton's do, or this is hard to say many of Amy's friends for that matter. Also, think about it, what would you do if found out your mom asked your friends to keep an eye on you? They too are just teens as well and the peer pressure to refuse or not want to be a snitch as they would see it would be too great, so I can't put my trust in them. But for some reason I know I can with you. I can."

"Okay... I'll do my best to ensure her safety but I too will not be a snitch. I am also someone who has no authority over her and if I have gotten to know anything about Amy it's that she doesn't respond well to people telling her what to do. So I won't tail her, but I promise I will look after her for you, but from afar", Ty responded.

The conditions Ty had communicated to Marion did not make her feel much more at ease and she still had reservations about whether to let Amy go or not. So as Marion left the loft and went back to the house she had to figure out if she was going to give Amy the news of the party and then if she would let her go or not.

It was a long night at Heartland. No one in the house had eaten well that night and Amy and Marion did not sleep that well either, but that could not be said for Jack.

Amy had spent much of her night thinking about all the things that her mom had shared with her that day. Then just when she thought she had figured out how she felt she had gone and told her about the party at the Stanton's and had given her permission to go. Well with one very puzzling condition. She had told her that Ty would take her and bring her home as he had been invited to the party as well by Ashley. Now she had one more question to ponder why had Ashley asked Ty to come and when had she asked him.

Amy was not sure if she was happy with or angry at her mom about the whole party thing. She had read her the riot act about her relationship with Jesse and now she was agreeing to let her go to the party. Of course there were stipulations. She had told her that Ty would take her and bring her home because he was able to drive and he had been invited to the party as well by Ashley. But she had not agreed to let Jesse or one of her friends drive her so what was her reason for having Ty take her. Was he to be her spy? Maybe what had her most puzzled was how Ty knew Ashley and why had she asked him to come to the party.

Marion too could not get the events of the day off her mind. She had confided in Amy about the circumstances of her father's leaving and then had to talk with Lou as well though that had ended in her leaving a message and since Lou had not called back she wondered if she had even cared to listen to the message once she had heard that it was her mothers' voice.

Her whole life seemed to have blown up in her face in one 24 hour period. First the reception of Ty had not gone as she had hoped it would. Then the news of Amy and Jesse had caught her completely off guard. She found out that they could lose the ranch and for a reason she still could not explain she had laid all of the family's dirty laundry at the feet of a young man she had known only for a few hours. Then because of that she had been forced into telling Amy, who then told Lou and then- well who knew what would come next.

She got out of bed and went out to the living room and curled up on the couch. She heard her father snoring through the closed doors. How could he be sleeping she asked herself? Had he not listened when she told him of the dire straits they were in? But then that was like her father seemed that when things got tough he seemed to gain strength through it. Sure he would fly off the handle and act like the world was coming to an end. But at the end of the day he seemed to be able to put it aside and go to sleep, as if only to be at full strength to fight on the next day.

….

Ty was awake early, something that was not the norm for him, he had gone to bed shortly after Marion had left and had a good night's sleep. He got up and put on his clothes, then opening the loft doors pulled up a chair and looked out at the night sky that was just beginning to brighten, as the sun painted the tops of the western Rockies in its golden glow. He could get used to this he thought to himself and he listened to the sounds of the ranch coming to life. A smile came across his face and he stood up and headed down stairs.

He began doing the morning chores. He went to Paint first, feeling like he was the "boss" of the barn and therefore the one he should work on being friends with. Taking the carrot he had placed in his pocket out, he headed into the stall. The horse started walking toward him, only this time Ty held his ground and watched as the horse stopped just inches away. Then Paint cocked his head and looked at Ty, waiting for his treat.

"So you think I have something for you, do you?" he asked the horse. "Well after yesterday I should be upset with you, but here it is," he said, pulling the carrot out from behind his back. Paint reached out and took a bite off the carrot, and Ty began to wonder if he could teach a horse to do things by rewarding them like they did with dogs. He decided that might be a question he could ask later, as he gave the rest of the carrot to Paint, then pushed him out of the way so he could clean the stall.

When he had finished cleaning the stalls and feeding the last horse, Ty noticed that the sun as still not up at the ranch.

"Well, you guys are clean and fed, so I guess I need to go clean up my room make my bed as well," he said to the horses, realizing that he was talking to the horses again though he did not feel as stupid about it as he had before, but he did wonder if that was a good thing or not. He knew that the folks back in the city would have had him committed had they heard him, or for the fact that he was up before the sun, cleaning up manure and feeding animals, and actually enjoyed it.

Up the stairs he went and as he finished making his bed, he heard someone downstairs in the barn. Figuring it was Marion or Jack, he headed back down the stairs to see if there was something he could do because he found that just sitting around was not so easy for him to do.

When he turned the corner on the stairs, he was surprised to see that the person in the barn was Amy. She had taken Pegasus out of his stall and was brushing him.

Amy looked up and seeing Ty gave him a quizzical look.

"So what you doing up so early there, city boy?" she asked.

"Guess I could ask the same of you, but then I figure you would just tell me that is what you do," was Ty's reply.

Amy smiled and putting down the brush, went to pick up her saddle.

"I usually am not up this early either, but today I needed to be out of the house before mom and grandpa woke up, I need a little time away from them. I figured that I could go for a ride as that is where I do my best thinking- astride a horse. I figured while I was out I could check on the cows and ride the fence to make sure it is in good repair. - Would you like to join me? Looks like you have already finished your morning chores."

Ty thought about what Marion had said, but this was work and something he would most likely be doing anyway while he was at the ranch, so what could it hurt. Maybe he could impress Jack as well with his willingness to work. Though he had a feeling that it was going to take a lot of work to impress Jack just a little , besides he also felt the need to be out of the barn for a while.

"Sure, I would love to," he said as he went to Copper's stall and lead him out so he could be brushed and saddled.

Once he was done, Ty led him outside and swung up in the saddle and joined an already mounted Amy and they started to ride out towards the pond behind the barn as the sun had just peaked over the trees.

They came to the fence and turned to follow it when Amy began to ask questions.

…..

Jack stood looking out the window of the kitchen and watched as Amy and Ty disappeared around the barn.

"Wonder where those two are headed..." he said to himself out loud.

"Where who is headed?" he heard his words echoing back to him from behind him.

Jack turned around and saw his daughter looking the worse for wear and he could tell she had not had a very good night's sleep.

"Looks like you could use a cup," he said as he stepped to the cupboard and pulled down another mug.

"I really could..." Marion murmured and sat down at the kitchen table. Jack poured another cup of coffee and walked over handing it to her. "Who were you talking about?" she wanted to know.

"Amy and Ty" he answered. "I just saw them ride off behind the barn towards pond." He gestured to the barn's general direction **.** Thought you had said you did not want him around her. Looks like he does not know how to obey very well- maybe why he is a jailbird- Jack could not help but adding; showing that he was not about to give up his stance on Ty being there.

Marion was tired and not in the mood for her dads barbs this morning and was just about to go off on him, then take out after the kids and give them a piece of her mind as well, when the phone rang.

Jack, happy for the interruption, walked over and picked up the phone. "Hello?" he said.

"Hello, Grandpa... It's been a while," came the greeting from a woman's voice from the other end of the line

To be continued


	20. Chapter 20

What If Chapter 20

"Why are you really here, Ty? And just who are you that you have already gotten my Mom to tell you more about our lives than she ever shared with me? I know she has told you not to answer my questions and I will say that you not telling me anything yesterday is part of the reason I asked you to come with me this morning. I need someone to talk to who does not have a dog in the fight so to speak. "

Ty had not expected this ride to turn to into some kind of interrogation, or maybe even worse a counseling session or he would not have agreed to have come along. Marion had warned him about getting involved any more than he already was. Now he was beginning to ask the same question, to himself, why where these people including him in their family matters. Because of what had happened yesterday with both Marion and Amy, and then Marion's warning, he had hoped that things would get back to normal whatever that might be.

He had hoped not everything that had to do with Amy and riding had to have an ulterior motive. Despite not being wanting to talk with her about her family problems, mostly because of what Marion had told him, he had empathy for Amy and her situation. He had lived a life based on lies as well, and he knew what it was like to want the answers to her questions from anyone, anytime and anywhere she could get them. Still as he looked at Amy sitting there he heard himself say.

"I am not sure that that is such a good idea," Not wanting to find himself in the middle of another family situation.

In his short time here on earth he had learned this much about women, when they say they need someone to talk to, it was usually not about flowers or what they might be wearing at the moment. No, when they said they needed to talk, it was usually about something very important, to them anyway, and they did not want to just tell anyone, they usually looked for someone they felt they could trust to keep it confidential.

He did not like being put in that position, but he knew short of turning Copper around and going back to the barn, he was going to hear what she had to say whether he wanted to hear it or not. And just like she seeming was sure she knew, he was not about to share what she told him with anyone. So like her mom, Amy, for some reason felt she could trust him with the things that were important to her though he was not sure why.

"I know you know at least a little about my sister and what Mom did to help her when she left with her education and expenses. I also know that you know a bit more than you probably want to know about the finances of Heartland at the moment. You know that at the moment we are a very dysfunctional family. But I want you to know it was not always this way. As a matter of fact till about a month ago, I would say that we had the perfect family, with one member who had just decided to live somewhere else," Amy told him.

"So what happened?" asked Ty as all he had learned said that the dysfunction had been going on for quite a while, or at least it appeared that way to him.

Then as quickly as he had asked it, Ty was upset with himself for urging Amy on.

"Well, for me it started when I was at a party at Ashley's, and her brother started paying attention to me. Don't get me wrong, he is a really good-looking guy who has more money than he knows what to do with and he loves to spoil me. But as I said we " _were"_ a fairly normal family, or so I thought. I was really close to Mom so I wanted to get her opinion about dating in general and more specifically dating Jesse. When I went to her and asked her about it, all she did was put me off. She would change the subject or ask me to do something or go somewhere so she did not have to answer me. So I made my own decision, and as you heard that did not go over well when she was forced to listen.

Now I am dating someone I am not really sure I want to be dating. Don't get me wrong it is fun and I do like him, but he is not someone who I could see getting really serious about. But then knowing that he could probably have any girl he wanted and still he chooses me... I don't know, it makes me feel good," Amy confided.

"Mom told me that "we" are invited to a party at the Stanton's on Friday and I really want to go, mostly because all my friends will be there, but also because I know Jesse will be there too. But there is one thing that still has me puzzled how did you get an invite you have only been here for a couple of days?"

If the truth be known listening to her talk about Jesse made him feel a bit jealous and he did not know why. Was there something to what Marion had said about the two of them? So he decided to try and put a wedge between anything that might have been starting there. "I guess it was because I greeted her from the loft of the barn and she was taken by my good looks." Ty said with a smile

"She talked to you in the loft? What was she doing up there with you anyway?"

"Hmm that is what she asked me about you!" replied Ty.

"She asked about me. What are you talking about?" Replied Amy

Ty was enjoying this as he could see that he had her full attention and it was fun being on this side of the conversation. "Well she saw me just wearing my jeans standing in the loft opening and asked if you were up there with me.? Ty could see by the look on Amy's face that she was uncomfortable with the question.

She quickly tried to change the subject back to him. "Why were you standing in the loft without your clothes on in the middle of the day."

"Funny those were her exact words as well" he said with a smile. "Then she told me that she would not tell Jesse if you were up there because if you weren't she would come on up."

Ty did not tell Amy how uncomfortable that had made him feel but left it there with Amy wondering if that was what had been really said. So he steered the conversation back to her family again.

"Why are we talking about your dating life? I thought you were telling me why your family was dysfunctional." Amy looked as if his question had done the job as she began to search for an answer to his question.

"It has everything to do with the question you asked me. You see, before Mom acted the way she did, I thought that I was the most important thing in the world to her. After the way she acted, I felt that I was the last thing she cared about. I had thought she listened when we talked and then all of a sudden it seemed as if she did not hear a thing I said. So maybe the reason I am dating someone she apparently does not approve of, or because I have stopped telling her what I am doing and with whom, is because she doesn't seem to care. Well unless there is someone who has no reason to know any of this is told at the same time she is that is."

"I am a grown woman now, and I can do what I want when I want and there is nothing she can say about it. Why should I care what she thinks or says now she had her chance and now I don't care. And to top it off I find out that she and Grandpa have been lying to me for the past 10 years, so what am I supposed to do with that?"

Ty was not sure if he wanted to open his mouth again as he did not want to make her think of anything else she could tell him. Maybe if he was just silent and became a sounding board, someone to vent her frustrations to, and it would all blow over. He had been where she was in a way. When his mom allowed him to end up in jail instead of standing up for him, he knew what it was to feel abandoned and lied to. She had always told him that he came first, till he had not.

"I am not so sure you want me to comment on your problems. We might have a bit different take on the how's and whys," said Ty. He was not sure where this was going, but he was getting deeper and deeper into a situation he had been warned to stay away from. Though, at this point the talk was not about anything that he and Marion had talked about, still he was getting into some things that probably should have been left as unknowns. He liked his new home and did not want to lose it, yet Amy had valid concerns and he felt he could not just walk away from helping her if he could. Maybe Marion had been right; he had always seemed to be ready to help someone, even if it was the wrong person at the wrong time.

"I want to know what you think. I guess mom seems thinks you are trustworthy, so why shouldn't I?" Amy replied in sarcastic voice.

"First of all, I understand the hurt of your mom and Grandpa not telling you about what happened with your father. While my circumstances were not the same, I know what it feels like when someone you love and you think loves you, lies to you. Though, technically you and your sister lied to yourselves as what you believed was never actually told to you by Jack or your Mom, if what I have heard from you and your mom is true. Secondly, she had what she felt was a good reason, and it was to protect you. In my case, the lies were real and part of my everyday life with my family, and they continued all the way to them lying and sending me to be locked up. So, there is a bit of difference between you and I; your family did not tell you and let you believe what you wanted to think was the truth for whatever reason. Mine actually lied to me over and over and over, to the point where even if they told the truth I would have believed it to be a lie."

Amy frowned. "So you are saying that I should not be upset that they did not actually tell me a lie?"

"I did not say that. I said that in your asking me that question you might not like the answer I gave. We see things from two very different points of view. While I do agree with you that you have reason to be angry, but if you were in your mom's place what would you have done?" Ty asked.

"I don't think I would have let my daughters think that their father left them, or was driven off as Lou seems to think. I would have told them that their father was a pill popping lush who took out his frustration by beating his wife, who, when caught by their grandfather, was told to leave and he then abandoned the them as well," Amy gave her answer based on everything she had heard from her mom and while she was angry with her, now believed it to be true.

"Your words or your mom's?" Ty asked as he watched the anger in Amy begin to come out all over again. He was not sure who she was the angriest with: her dad or her mom and Jack or herself for not finding out sooner.

"What the hell difference does it make whose words they are? That is what I am being asked to believe now after being allowed to think that Dad might actually care about us. That Mom and Grandpa actually loved us enough to tell us about the hard times, like losing Heartland. Then mom lets me run off and do whatever I want with whomever I want and she does not care till I am caught. Grandpa knows, or thinks he does, but keeps it to himself, until he finds a time to unleash his anger at me in front of a complete stranger."

Ty could tell it was time to let things cool down a bit before continuing the conversation, so he kicked Copper into a gallop and headed up the fence line. Not sure what he was looking for in the riding of the fence as Amy had called it, but knowing he did not want to be back there with an angry Amy either. She had vented and gotten angry but he could tell that she was only starting to get wound up when he had decided to go on ahead.

Amy quickly caught up and said:

"Where do you think you are going in such a hurry? I am not finished yet."

"You may not be, but I am. Maybe I'm willing to listen, but I'm not just some bucket you can verbally throw up in so you can feel better about yourself. I think you need to cool down a bit so you can think rationally," Ty replied as he continued looking at the fence and never looking over at Amy.

"Well maybe I don't want to be rational!" shouted Amy and turned Pegasus around, and kicking him in to a full gallop, headed off in the other direction.

To be continued.


End file.
